Thoughts on Getting Jobs in the Media

Do you ever wonder what it would take to get a job in a media related field?

As a professor who teaches media sociology, I have some bad news and good news for my students:

The bad news is that, as a rule, people who make hiring decisions in the media do not care what courses you took or what grades you got in them in college. I wish it were true that students who took my courses and did well in them would subsequently be on a fast track towards a fabulous media career. But it's not. By themselves, taking media courses in college -- at UVM or elsewhere -- does you little good in actually getting a job in the media.

But there's good news, too: all you need to do to get your foot in the door of the media industries is do at least one internship before you finish your college career.  You can often get college credit for doing an internship with a TV station, newspaper, or advertising agency. But the credit is just gravy; you don't need it. An internship provides you valuable "real world" experience, helps you establish contacts in the industry (with people who can write you recommendations later on), and gives you a feel for the industry that you can't get in the classroom.

The upshot is that the person with a couple of media internships and a degree in medieval history probably has a better shot at a media job than a person with straight A's in 10 college-level media courses and no internship.

Students sometimes ask, "Why aren't there career-oriented majors in the media field at UVM? Shouldn't there be some?" I'm one of those who prefer a liberal arts approach, where students major in one or another area of intellectual pursuit coupled to internships and on-the-job experience. I think that, to be a good journalist, public relations expert, filmmaker, or even web site designer, above all you need to learn how to think, read, write, and make sense of the larger world with subtlety and effectiveness. Technical skills, while important and useful, are secondary, and relatively easily learned through a course or two coupled to internships. (It's worth mentioning that some prominent journalists have argued that journalism schools do their fields a disservice, and that aspiring media professionals are better off with liberal arts majors.) If you are a student contemplating a career in a media related field, in any case, the single most important thing you can do to pursue that goal is to do an internship or two while you are still an undergraduate.