Sooner or later, the time would come. The time to leave behind the wasted days of TV watching, Madden playing and not going to parties and enter the real world. As my co-op at a local newspaper winds down, this realization has slowly come to me.
While I may shop for cheap Christmas presents this month, the next few months after, I’ll be the cheap Christmas present. You see, during these next few months my job search must begin, and it’s got me feeling uneasy.
Like Christmas shoppers, prospective news agencies will survey large aisles of failed athletes/computer team members who all want to be sports reporters. The iPods and Xbox 360s will be the Ivy League grads who write like Rick Reilly and speak like Al Michaels. Yours truly will probably be somewhere in the discount DVD bin with “Bordello of Blood” and “Gigli.”
I cannot continue this lame Christmas metaphor, so I’ll get right to it. The job search process makes the college search process look simple in comparison. Choosing between Northeastern and Hawaii Pacific is nothing compared to deciding whether to move to Mississippi for a low-paying job or trek to California with 90 percent of your class and dreams of making a cameo on Fox’s new hit series “Bones.”
It’s an especially tough decision for journalism majors. The business is not exactly booming at the moment. Both the Globe and Herald are facing serious financial strains and that’s just the beginning. Editor and Publisher reported last month there were nearly 1,900 layoffs at mid-sized to major newspapers this year. Most journalism students who are offered jobs out of college make near $20,000 a year or enough to buy a few Bruins tickets. I can’t help but look at the current state of affairs in print journalism and think jumping into the pit right now would be as effective as embarking on a career selling championship t-shirts to Jets fans.
I wish someone would have told me this earlier, like at freshman orientation. It would have helped me immensely had some teacher told me, “So if you like not having free time or a social life, if money is something other people have, if satisfaction and upward mobility are pipe dreams and if listening to three-hour water committee meetings sounds like fun, then print journalism is for you.”
Some of my peers might think I’m being too gloomy. They are the ones who became journalism majors because they love the thrill of reporting and the excitement of informing the public and being crusaders for truth and Filene’s ads.
I picked this major because I can’t do math or science and my dreams of playing second base for the Red Sox went down the drain the minute I realized I am scared of hard white objects coming at my face at high speeds. So journalism it was.
Now, my co-op has been great, but I’ve learned a few things on my travels that frighten me. I’ve been covering high school football for a few months and the sports reporters I have met can be grouped into two categories: Miserable men who have been beaten beyond recognition by thankless jobs in print journalism or hopeful men who have tried their hand at print but have decided to jump ship before it is too late.
Sometimes, it can be like looking into the future, and it doesn’t look too bright.
Compare my debilitating self-doubt with my sister’s job prospect – five months before graduation, she already has a job lined up at a Boston accounting firm for $50,000 a year plus benefits. I might make $50,000 in three years.
Accounting majors, future engineers and other non-liberal arts majors probably have a more financially rewarding end to all this in mind, as well they should. They had the foresight and luck to have interests in lucrative fields. They were born with skills and marketable talents. I can write legible English sentences, but as legendary basketball coach Bob Knight once said, “All of us learn to write in second grade, then we go on to greater things.”
When my mom informed me of my sister’s job, I told her she should lower her hopes for me. She scoffed, and said, “Stop it. You’re doing journalism because you like it.” Yeah, I do like it most of the time. I also like money. I’m not expecting $70,000 out of the gate but after graduation I’m going to have loans to pay, illegitimate children to feed and “24” DVDs to buy, so I need some sort of living wage. I’ve just shelled out an ungodly amount of money for a college education so sue me if I want a return on that investment.
I should have thought this all out five years ago. I’m unprepared and cursed with a need for instant gratification. I guess I’ll have to pay my dues and hope for the best, but for all you business majors with your high salaries and your fancy benefits, I shall scold you with my talents with the written word. I shall tear you down from your lofty pedestals with the skills I have honed for the last five years by saying, “You suck.” Now I feel better.
– Stephen Sears can be reached at [email protected].
