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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (April 24, 1986)
of undergraduate student loans. You should weigh carefully the added costs before enrolling; to borrow still more money, you should be entirely certain that the graduate degree pursued is worth the time and cost "Once you decide you want to go to graduate school, and you decide what specifically you want to study, then you start looking at cost,” agrees the Council of Grad uate School’s Linney. "Costs are going up across the board for graduate education, public and private Most programs average six to seven thousand dollars a year tuition, and some are much higher And the sources • . *' of financial assistance on the graduate level are far fewer Graduate students are much more dependent on loans as a method of financing their education " Loans, by and large, are more readily available for the graduate student than for his undergraduate counterpart Though it's difficult to generalize, you're probably a more attractive loan candidate on the grad uate level than you were four years earlier, entitled to a slightly better rate due to your increased earning potential and demon stration of discipline and responsibility And despite Linney's assertion that the sources of graduate financial aid are more limited than undergraduate assistance opportuni ties, you should still do some checking on your own Start with local professional organizations in your field to scout any appropriate graduate assistance programs "A graduate degree in any field is a demonstration of your commitment to that field," observes the University of Virginia's Dowd "Sometimes when you’re compet ing with other people who don’t have that, it's a good edge to have, but you’ll have to determine what that edge is worth, and at what cost you’re willing to pursue it.” Many companies offer continuing education incentives to their employees, in the form of tuition assistance, time off for day classes, leave-of-absence options for concentrated study, or non-degree oriented seminars to broaden your profes sional horizons "If a student is trying to make a decision between companies." advises Linney. "one key question to ask is if there are opportu nities with that company for advanced edu cation Increasingly, companies are using education as a recruiting device " CASE IN POINT Steven Waldman wanted to be a /our nalist when he graduated from Columbia last May He considered carefully what most loumalism schools had to offer in the way of master's programs, and now he no longer wants to be a /ournalist Instead, he is one Waldman works as an editor for The Wash ington Monthly a small but influential liberal magazine based in our nation's capital Now. from the working side of his cho sen profession. Vteldman, 23. waxes scep tical on the wonders of graduate /ournahsm programs "I don't think it's necessary,'’ he reasons "I think that basically /ournalism school is best for people who are making career transitions, who have decided to go into iournalism after doing something else, or who have decided to go into a different type of loumalism \bu know, if they decide to go into broadcast loumalism after doing print" After a stint as the editor-in-chief at the Spectator, Columbia's daily student news paper, and a one-year tour as a reporter for the States News Service, Waldman con vinced Monthly publisher Charles Peeters he was more than qualified to work long hours, for little pay, under his tutelage Waldman's position at the magazine has long been regarded as one of the most presti gious apprenticeships m the held, and many a fine lournalism career has been launched from similar beginnings 'What I hear," he says, "from talking to editors is that they are not that hot on jour nalism school And in fact, some will look less favorably on a person who went to journalism school because it tends to at tract people who didn’t have prior journal ism experience "Supposedly editors are looking more and more kindly on reporters with special ties, and part of your credentials as a spe cialist is whether or not you have a graduate degree in it I think it's a good combination of backgrounds to have done daily journal ism, learning about the real world by re porting on it, and spending a year or two learning about an area from an academic perspective It enables you to think about the same problem m different ways Above all, you have to recognize how incredibly competitive a field this is. and it you enter the job market with a little experience you 're going to get a little job VbuVe not going to be able to jump right into the newspaper /ob you want right out of college " Waldman, a political science major at Columbia, plans on practicing what he preaches when *e's had his fill of the Month ly's long hours he plans on pursuing a grad uate degree in history or political science "I'm sure I will," he asserts "You have to I don't think it's sufficient, if you want to be an economics reporter, to have just an MA in economics without having journalism expe rience If you have to start out on a small sized newspaper, I don't think they're going to care if you have an MA in economics The nature of a small newspaper is that you 'll be a general assignment reporter, everyone does everything If you're going to a bigger paper, it matters more Then you need the graduate degree-not necessarily in jour nalism, but in a specialty area That's where graduate school helps " THE INFORMAL HIGHER EDUCATION All is not reading and writing and rithmetic when it comes to con tinuing education It's also rolling (a muscle relaxing technique that's great tor getting the kinks out) and rallying (getting and staying involved to aflect community change) and rigami (the ancient Japanese art of paper folding), and a whole host of other subjects and activities-beginning with, oh, every letter under the sun The legendary "Three R’s" of a formal educa tion just don't hold a candle to the informal, real life self-improvement program you'll need to adopt once you leave school College provides a nurturing environ