> As for Stephen's question about what an English degree might actually prepare one for, I'd like to point out that at UNH, the journalism courses were part of the English major, not Communications or a seperate entity all their own like many other places. So if I'd chosen to take mostly journalism classes rather than crap like "16th Century British Novels", I would have ended up (possibly) prepared to do *his* job!

Not to knock English departments, but my limited experience has been that journalism classes that are part of an English major suck. My university was the same way which is one reason I didn't major in journalism.

The fact is, journalism is a very specific field of study that is quite a bit different from English and even from communication. Journalism is practically a trade skill while English and mass comm. are very theoretical. You can study journalism theory but it won't prepare you to do my job any more than my studying political science prepared me to be a politican.

If a school doesn't have a strong enough journalism program to offer a full major in it, it stands to reason that journalism is not a priority at the school and thus the program is probably fairly weak.

Stephen