cosycatus said:
I think you shouldn't be so concerned about the pros and cons of NTU or NUS, BUT you should be more concerned about how majoring in Lit is going to help u enter journalism.
Journalism accepts everyone. We have writers in Straits times that have a Ph.d in the physical science ( Andy Ho), Tan She Er ( who graduate with a degree in music and is doing her Ph.D in some strange subject now.) and the usual variety of degres.
And because they do take in people from a wide variety of backgrounds,you have to be really good if you do not have a relevant degree in mass comms or info comms.
Think along this line and plan how you can enter journalism.
The way i see it, the insitution having a long or short history, doing a honours in 3 or 4 years, bigger or smaller cohort, closer or further prof relationship, being the pinoneer batch or not, etc etc does not matter at all.
Or do you really know u want to enter journalism?
Hello...
My 2 sons had the same trouble with you about 6 - 8 years back, deciding which university to go to.. with my elder son wanting BADLY to do journalism. At that point of time, NTU's communications program was up and coming, and was the most likely choice for his field of study.
Well... what i can offer here is advise on behalf of what my 2 sons went through, and found out during the course of their degrees, one journalism, the other Poli sc /econs......
1. Ok.. firstly, this sounds kind of far fetched.. but ask yourself... WHERE would you like to work after you graduate with your degree presumably, journalism.
2. Make a list of companies that you would hopefully be interning at, with the hope of applying to,
3. Most impt part: go and find out more about the employees there, job scopes and employment trends.
Reason: You want to know where the company u wanna work at, is hiring its employees from.
During both my son's time, singapore's press industry/media co-operation were ONLY giving "desirable" posts to overseas grads, particularly their own scholars. Now, it seems like it's still very much so, or even worse with the increase in govt scholarships? and foreign talent from what i heard. maybe i'm wrong.. but that seems to be the impression i get from our newspapers.
In other words, you want to find out how "worthy" your degree is to them and whether it will help you attain the position you want within that company, especially with the amount of scholars our govt is sending overseas.
This doesn't have to degenerate into an NUS vs NTU fight here, but in my honest opinion, finding out how much your degree is "worth" for your employment in the future, really is the issue.
Both my sons ended up coming to the west coast of ang moh land to do their degrees, and here's the farney part:
the eldest one applied to our local media coy for a post related to his degree (journalism). He got rejected as the post was only reserved for their own "bonded" personnel. Ironically, he's, now he's working with me within the same press company (diff depts) within Northern california, company name i cannot mention, but CNN's our biggest competitor.
Well.. you really have to know where u want to go especially nowadays, with more and more foreign talent coming into singapore.... A degree nowadays won't get you ANYWHERE in my opinion, judging from increasing number of degree holders from both the unis locally and in aussie.
As an old ah pek within this vocation for donno how long, and as a father of 2 sons within the same field, if you really want to know about journalism/media studies within the USA, drop me a message, and i can give u a brief insight into the schools here that offer EXCELLENT programs.
Good luck :thumbsup:
