What to do.....

Actually you should probably read the Spring Has Sprung thread entry to get a clearer picture of why I'm considering all this......if I seem a bit blase here.

Don't be afraid to change your course at the end of the first year. It might do you good to do a course that is less focused on journalism, don't treat it as a be all and end all. Could you combine it with something like Film Studies? or Mass Communication? or any IT type courses (ie website design, desk top publishing etc). Ask your lecturers, they'll probably be at least one who is approachable.

I agree with Jel, Ronan, but let me also add this contradictory piece of advice:

I started off with a journalism major and found it unspeakably tedious: the grueling, near-clerical first-year "basic writing" course I took without doubt constituted the worst portion of my entire collegiate experience. Thus I pretended to be an English major until I got accepted into a creative writing program, which I don't overall regret.

However: I now bump into journalism grads from my school and they are all doing well. This is to say that at the end of a couple years' tedium, they suddenly emerged with healthy portfolios and magazine internships and can now honestly expect to make a living doing the sort of writing I can't even find free time to focus on. (E.g. Maura, sort of.) This is in part because the school I went to has a very strong and very placement-oriented journalism school, but it's also in part because that soul-breaking entry tends to be worth something, in the end.

This isn't to dissuade you from switching your concentration, and especially not from tacking on a minor or related study. But perhaps you should try to find someone who's a few years out of the course, or just finishing up, to talk to: they may well tell you that it suddenly gets great as of the third year. Every course of study is like that -- it's just a question of how much it sucks at first and how much better it gets later on.

I have a similar problem, maybe. I like the course and everything, and it's interesting and everything. It's just so SLOW. A few hours a week for barely half the year, being taught fairly basic stuff. My favorite lecture is the hour long one with a lot of content - he just get's on and does it, no arseing about. I'd just much rather be out doing stuff.

I suppose all university courses are like this. Is there any way around it, or do I just have to sit it out?

(I'm doing Media Technology = basically TV engineering)

what's yr reasons for doing journalism? i f it's getting a job at a newspaper, siwthc into pr/marketting....if it's writing, go out to a lot of parties, learn whose cock to suck, bugger the education and just write, keep ringing people up an dharassing them - even if it takes you twoyears, you'll get a decent job out of it, and if you don't, you will have material worth writing about.

Wanna know how many people in this here newsroom (where, you note, I am sitting, working, in the middle of the BLEEDIN’ NIGHT) have a journalism qualification? Not even one. Truth is it doesn’t matter a shadow of a jot what your degree’s in (philosophy, for godsake…). So you might as well enjoy it for three years. And DO NOT, in the name of all that is decent and holy, even think about doing anything with MEEJA or COMMUNICATION in the title. In the real world, they will laugh.

Other people have talked more sense than I know about the journalism thing. Re academic thing: lots of people change subjects during/after their first year, or leave to take time out to get some perspective/purpose, and probably lots more *should*. If you're going to change, try go for positive-pull rather than negative-push: will other departments let you audit their courses? Dunno about academically, but here you come across as really sharp, also something of a debunker, quick to cut through/across ideas and positions*. Maybe you need to find or develop something that catches your imagination and engages you, academically or otherwise. I'd also say try see an academic advisor/counsellor asap; they might be bad or useless, but you may luck out and get some good advice and support.

*Sorry if that's patronising/offensive.

And Nitush, does any course of study need to start out sucking? Sure, setting out some disciplines might feel fusty or excessively basic (to some students), but in lots of cases isn't that down to uninspired teaching or poorly devised/organised courses? IN some disciplines (mine included) there are well-known trade-off in this area: start with the tradition historial/philosophical foundations and risk alienating/boring the students, or go for a substantive and problem-led approach and risk failing to introduce appropriate grounding and methods of knowledge-production. But getting the right combination is only difficult, not impossible.

Bah, drop out, then you can be like and have an ace job that you... um... oh... fcuk. STICK WITH IT - at least you will haf yr good times @ university to remember and won't end up like me who FACT: wants to cry when ppl start sharing their great times and I am like... um... yes...

come to thailand dude, you know it makes sense.

Jane, is that true about MEEJA and COMMUNICATIONS folks being a holy mockery amongst those in the know?

Ronan, i was talking to one of the guardian journos and, like jane, he reckoned that a decent portfolio and some good ideas were worth a lot more than a journalism degree.

Ronan - accademically my first year of a journalism BA was fairly uninspiring. A finding your feet kind of year. Then it picked up, although the second year was mainly news and radio based and not where my heart really was. That happened in my final year, where I could skew it towards features writing. But I'm so glad I did the slog through media law and court and council reporting, I feel like I've got a much more solid base of reporting and general skills to hang all the enjoyable writing nice sentences/ communicating a feeling stuff on.

I don't know if your course is comparable, but it seems so from what you've said. And I can't stress enough how grateful I am that I got the basics down too, it's given my work a lot more structure and clarity.

And the piece of paper does help, as do the people you meet along the way.

Ronan, Having the tenacity to finish something you started is the greatest (only?) skill modern education can teach you. The piece of paper doesn't always mean much in itself but the fact that you stuck it out speaks volumes.
You seem certain of your ambitions, so I say see it through. Use your 3 years to make tracks/contacts/mistakes in journalism whilst you don't have to worry about getting paid for it.

If you know you can do what you want to do, then just go for it.