OK, so I'm not really saying we should all be journalists, but I couldn't help but think we can all learn a lot by watching how they shape, and re-shape their careers in the midst of change. Despite the rapid decline of mainstream media, enrollment in journalism programs is up 35% across the country! Why? Because there is opportunity created while the industry is remaking itself. Getting involved in this state of transition is an opportunity to redefine the industry! See any connections between what is happening in the media industry and out economy as a whole? Learn from the journalists: "The future is for smart, hard-working students to band together, create their own (insert your specialty here), and make a business out of it—and that's what a lot of them are doing."

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Several Factors Contribute to High Interest in Journalism Even though the newspaper industry in particular is struggling, enrollment in many undergraduate journalism programs across the United States is on the rise, according to a recent article in The Chronicle of Higher Education. Overall, the number of journalism undergrads nationwide has gone up 35 percent over the last 10 years, to about 201,000. "There are still plenty of people who love to write and [who] think that their journalism degree will serve as an entree to just about any field they could go into," says Barbara Hines, president of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication. What's behind the growth of the journalism major in such difficult media times? Experts in the field point to several factors - one of them being, counter intuitively, the field's unfolding state of flux. "Ambitious and creative young people see this as an opportunity to be part of the effort to recast and remake journalism," argues former Wall Street Journal Online managing editor Bill Grueskin, dean of academic affairs for the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University (NY). Other industry insiders say students are drawn to journalism programs' expanding emphasis on new-media tools (e.g., blogs, Twitter) as well as entrepreneurship. "There's not a great future in working for mainstream media," says Christopher

Harper, an associate professor of journalism at Temple University (PA). "The future is for smart, hard-working students to band together, create their own media, and make a business out of it—and that's what a lot of them are doing." Source: The Chronicle of Higher Education, September 25, 2009.

Chuck Hancock

Colorado State University Career Center