A minor problem

As a journalism major at BU, I need to have a liberal arts concentration. This is logical. I know it's important to get something out of college other than learn how to write. Most people think that you should learn about whatever you want to write about. This is code for "Maybe you should consider Political Science or International Relations" because clearly all news is about the government or the rest of the world. Well, it isn't.

My favorite part of the newspaper is the Arts and Leisure section but sadly BU doesn't offer classes in concert, CD, food, theater or fashion reviewing. What were they thinking? So I quickly move on to other things that interest me like saving the world. I don't have super powers so I suppose informing people about global injustices would be sufficient. Sadly, courses on global injustices aren't offered either, but there is a class on developing countries. Nevertheless, none of these interests lead me to a minor/concentration.

So I decided I would take some introductory courses in my future minor. Computer Science could be very useful for journalism considering most papers are already on the internet, and the thought of actual newspapers hanging around forever is a bit of a joke. Web journalism is becoming the next print journalism, and everyone has to accept it. So if I was a CS minor with a bachelors is journalism think of all the jobs I would be eligible for. People would love me. Yet, my computer science course is just okay. I find that my professor spends most of her time lecturing on current events in technology instead of the text, which I am totally okay with because I think it's interesting but could be easily achieved by reading the paper. Also, my TA has a hard time speaking English, and seems a little clueless about what exactly he supposed to be teaching us. Could I handle three years of classes like "Concepts of Programming Languages" and "Introduction to Analysis of Algorithms?" I'm not totally sure about that.

I'm really interested in my Anthropology class. It doesn't help that my professor is a really great speaker, so maybe I'll end up with a really horrible teacher next semester and decide I hate anthropology. Despite the masses of reading, I find most of them to be interesting. Still, minoring in anthropology seems very impractical. In fact, I scoff at people who have decided to be anthropology majors. What exactly are they going to do with their degree other than proceed to be in school for another ten years and write a couple of books. I mean I would like to write books, but probably not ethnographic books.

So do I proceed along the path of an anthropology minor or computer science minor? Do I minor in something worthless, but interesting, or something hard that would eventually help me get jobs?

Crapface!

I work with two graduate students, one is in law school and one is in the school of education. Yesterday at work, the one in law school talked about how she wished she had worked in education. She will have a law degree in May, and isn't really sure what she's going to do with it. Both of them said that most of their family works in education, and one embraced it, and one denied it. Both of them spent their summers teaching people in foreign countries in English. Now one is excited about working in foreign countries teaching people theater, and the other regrets that she didn't become a teacher.

I feel as though this is an appropriate time for me to question my life. Am I denying my fate? Perhaps. I am ultra excited at the prospect of teaching English in Ecuador this summer. Let's not forget about how I teach people English on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and work at a preschool on Wednesdays. I want to travel the world, and write about it while I'm at it. Both of them said that teaching English is the best way to travel the globe because a. you're helping people b. you're visiting foreign countries c. you get to know the culture and their traditions and d. people accept you and take you in because you're a good person who likes helping their kiddies. Am I going to be law school girl except I'll have a masters in Journalism, and will know more about teaching people English than writing city news? Ah, questioning my life is my favorite hobby.

Dear editor of the Muse,

We are enemies. Why can't you just recognize that it is my fate to write for the Arts and Entertainment section of the paper at BU? I don't like how you ignore me. I email you three times, and what do I get? A bunch of emails from BU Today but none from you. It's not that I have nothing to write about. I had a suggestion for an article. I just needed your approval that it would actually be printed, but no you couldn't do that. I may not look like a hipster doofus that would normally write for the arts section of a paper, but neither do you. Trust me, I know. I looked you up on facebook. So watch your back cause Comm Ave. is a dangerous place.
your worst nightmare,
Jane Horstmann

How many news sources do you use per day?

Three. NPR, New York Times online, The Boston Globe and on occasion our college paper, The Daily Free Press. At first, I thought it was a drag having to read the news all the time. Last semester I used to read the first section of the globe cover to cover, and it was the worst. You might think the first section is short, but really it's close to 30 pages of articles. Plus we were quizzed on it, so you couldn't just move on if you thought the article was boring. I mean crazy questions, like what surgery was preformed in space last week? What? Does it matter?

Now, I've taken to looking up the news for fun. Last night, being a Saturday, I looked up the news on the Scooter Libby case and proceeded to read the rest of the news on the front page. I feel like this is definitely a good thing. I need to be interested in the news if I want to work in the industry. Obsession with looking at the news online: a good thing.

La La Literacy

I have just been employed by the ILP at BU. It's a literacy program, and we go to a public school in Chelsea where we help teach parents how to read, and understand English better. Currently my activities at BU include both volunteering at a preschool once a week, and working at the ILP. This past summer I worked at a summer camp as a counselor with 8 year-olds.

So the question has been raised on several occasions, do I want to be a teacher? At camp, it was a general question because many of the counselor were either teachers or were interested in becoming a teacher. At the preschool I volunteer at the teacher told me about how I should really consider being a teacher. Now, as I have just taken this tutoring job, I wonder if I like teaching and reading to toddlers, children and adults so much am I subconsciously on the path to being an English teacher?

I think no. Teaching seems to hard both emotionally and physically. I would probably teach high schoolers in an attempt to really affect their lives. Yet, being hated by a pack of 16 year-olds because I'm trying to ruin their lives by giving them homework, and proceeded to read through their poorly written papers doesn't seem appealing to me. It seems like a very unfulfilling life to be disliked by students, but if you're lucky you could probably change 1 in every 50 students lives. This doesn't seem right, a very low statistic. Still, why am I itching to participate in these activities instead of spending my nights at the daily paper at BU? This is quickly becoming an issue in my life. I would like to clarify that I also work at the radio station and just emailed a section of the paper about writing for them. Nevertheless, I dedicate more or equal amounts of time to these non-journalism activities.

Narcolepsy

I got approximately 7 hours of sleep last night, and I could not keep my eyes open during Journalism class today. It's not that I didn't get enough sleep because I had anthropology later in the afternoon, and I was awake and attentive.

We were covering printmaking, apprentices, newsletter's audience, Ben Franklin, you know the most interesting things happening to journalism in the 1720's. While some students were super intrigued on who wrote these articles and how much people had to pay for a subscription to a newsletter, I was struggling to write a full sentence without closing my eyes. Is it bad that I'm not interested in the history of journalism? At first I figured it was normal to be bored, but it seemed like the professor had just told us that Ben Franklin rode a unicorn from Boston to Philadelphia. If that was true, I'd be much more excited, but alas it is not.

Selling my soul

At college, you are required to declare a major by junior year. Here at Boston University, things aren't quite that simple. You have to declare a major within a certain school. For instance, currently I'm in the College of Communication (COM) looking to major in journalism, but I wonder, do I really want to be a journalism major? Although I technically have until junior year to declare a major, but unless I'm interested in being a journalism, PR, or film major I need to get out of COM by sophomore year.

So do I want to sell my soul to the newspaper/magazine industry where I will just barely get paid, work crazy hours, and most likely be ridiculed by my editor? I think so, for now. You my fine reader will take into consideration the happenings of this semester, and by May, everyone will vote on whether or not I should proceed to major in journalism.

Currently, my experience with journalism, will be my introductory journalism course, writing for an arts and entertainment section of the paper once a week and possibly reporting the news on our radio station. The other majors will be considered by my interest in the classes I'm taking/have taken, and my daily thoughts.