Vac Work saved my dream

the Journalism and Media Studies course is seen as the best in South Africa, you just need to look at the Africa Media Matrix to see that a lot of emphasis is put on this degree as the best Journalism degree in the country and is even internationally renown. If there is one thing that this course has taught me it has been to have an opinion. In my opinion the course is not what I expected at all and has been, although fun, very disappointing because it has completely changed my mind about the career I wish to follow. The competitive nature of the course has been the biggest issue for me. One of the first things you are told at the beginning of the year is that just less than half of the class will not be proceeding forward to JMS 2, which is a great way to scare the procrastination out of many of the students, but is also an off putting trait to those of us who are not as academically inclined as others and were just trying to follow a dream.

I was disappointed further that first year has consisted mainly of theoretical work and ideological studies. We have learnt about Thompson and Castells and their opinions on media within society but not enough on the ´hard core´ writing aspect of the career. I don´t feel that we are subjected to the realities of the Journalism industry. Every student must do a week of work shadowing in the year. I had not been excited for the idea of ¨vac work¨, but it ended up being a very good experience and the best experience of my JMS 1 career. I felt that through one week being in the industry I had learnt more than Id learnt in the entire year of lectures. Experience is a major factor to a career such as journalism. Some of the people working at the newspaper agency where I did my work shadowing did not even have a degree in journalism or a degree at all. This did not make them worse off as they had something which all good journalists need and that is talent.

My main argument comes down to studying journalism at all. There are skills that you need to learn but once again they can be learnt so much more effectively through experience and a more ´hands on´ and practical way of learning. This has not been offered to me through this degree, therefore I must change.

I will not however be giving up on my dream to become a journalist. This year has taught me that there are other paths to follow that will still lead me to a career in journalism. Before I got into Rhodes I was nervous and in trying to compensate for what might not happen (me getting accepted into JMS 1), I used to say that, ¨it is the person who makes the journalist, not the degree!¨, so on that note I must stick with my opinion and change my degree. I have had a year where I had been initially disappointed with my course but then given new vigour once I experienced the real life of a being journalist.