Columbia University School of Journalism Offers Unique Graduate Program

[administrator]

Now in its fifth year, Columbia University School of Journalism is offering a unique graduate program which might interest some of your grantees. A number of international students on Fulbright scholarship programs have chosen to enroll in recent years. Unlike the Journalism School?s Master of Science program, which teaches students the essential skills required of every journalist, our Master of Arts program provides each student with an individualized education in the field he or she hopes to cover. Applicants select a concentration: arts and culture, business, politics, or science: health and the environment. Once enrolled, a student?s area of focus can be as broad as ?business? or as specific as architecture or bioethics.

Each student comes to the program already having demonstrated competency in reporting and writing. For the most part our students are reporters, editors, and producers who have years (and, in some cases, decades) of experience, but feel they are lacking the foundation to do more challenging stories?often on complex or technical subjects.

Take Greg Callus, who had been freelancing for one of Britain?s most-read political blogs,politicalbetting.com, for several years before applying for a Fulbright. After winning the grant, he chose to study political journalism at Columbia. Through the M.A. program, he?s been able to explore his overlapping interests in policy, media, and business. He?s taken separate courses about the European Union, comparative politics, and media entrepreneurship. Callus says that no matter where his career takes him, he?s ?never going to stop writing articles and books.? Recent Fulbright students have also come from countries including Greece, Spain, Pakistan, Mexico, South Africa, Belgium, Peru and Norway.

All M.A. students augment high-level courses inside the journalism school with electives taken at Columbia?s other departments and professional schools. The intention is to provide the kind of intellectual grounding that enables a journalist to delve deeper into a story, asking the kind of questions an expert in the field might pose and evaluating evidence. The program attracts students who might otherwise enroll in another kind of degree program: an MBA, a Master?s in Political Science, or perhaps a public health degree. We give them the same access to top experts and cutting-edge thinking, but the framing is always journalistic. They write stories, not research papers, and conduct interviews instead of studies. Fortunately, we have been able to offer very generous financial assistance during the first several years of the program. And we have secured ongoing support from nonprofits including the Carnegie Foundation and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

The M.A. program?s content-based approach to journalism education seems particularly apt today, as the industry becomes increasingly specialized. Indeed, even in this challenging environment, graduates have found jobs with some of the most esteemed news organizations, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The NewsHour, Pro Publica, and CNN. They are also writing books, producing independent documentaries, and freelancing for a variety of media outlets.

M.A. brochure online: http://bit.ly/cguVsQ. If you have questions, please contact Christine Souders: cs2534@columbia.edu.

Applications for next year?s M.A. class are due on January 15, 2011.

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