Right now, I am undecided when it comes to my major. There are three things I am interested in however, which are psychology, advertising, and journalism. Out of those three, I’m leaning towards journalism because of my love for writing. I love fashion, so hopefully there is something in which I could write about that. I would probably start out writing for some newspaper or magazine in St. Louis. Since I enjoy writing, I decided to talk to professor, Tom Pettit who is associated with journalism. Tom first told me that writing for a newspaper of magazine is an awesome experience because you learn new things and meet new people. He then told me about his experience in writing for the St. Louis Post Dispatch. I told him about my cousin who use to write for the newspaper and he said the name sounded familiar. Tom said writing for the St. Louis Post Dispatch was a wonderful job but you have to know how to handle stress and follow deadlines. If you write for a newspaper, there are strict deadlines that you have to follow by every day since newspapers come out every day of the week. With magazines, which are usually monthly, the deadlines are every month. You would think that would be a piece of cake just writing one thing a month, but it’s more than that. Writers have to do multiple articles or pieces. Tom explained how one bad thing with journalism is that the future is going digital. Hundreds of newspaper writers are losing their jobs so it’s a difficult field right now. He said that pretty soon there will come a time when there are no more newspapers and no hard copies, just digital such as the internet. There’s still hope though, Tom said. There are always going to be those people that buy the hard copies of newspapers and magazines. Some people would rather hold the actual magazine or newspaper in front of them rather than go to a website. Also, in this career, you should expect long hours and as said before, you have to know how to handle stress. Writers are under great pressure to meet deadlines. In journalism, to make yourself more employable it’s ideal to do a number of things like learn photography, HTML, and even a foreign language. Journalists need to be multi-skilled. A great way to start is by writing for the school paper, which I will probably do next year. Another important thing is to read. Some people don’t enjoy reading, but for me, I love it. Reading not only makes you a smarter person, but it can give you new ideas and show different writing styles. Salaries in journalism can range from typically range from $20,000 to $50,000 depending on what job you do. Journalism involves investigating, interviews with different people, and observation of events. Overall, meeting with Tom Pettit gave me a better understanding of a career in journalism and it’s definitely a career I could see myself doing.
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