Considering a MA in Journalism

micromegas

Hey everyone. Some of you might remember me from about a year ago when I was posting about coming to DCU a spring semester.

Well, I came, I saw and now I want to go back. Unless something changes, I'll be graduating from my home university in America in 2007 and I'm considering going back to DCU to get an MA in Journalism.

What I'm wondering is if anyone here is in the program or knows anything about it. I've read about it online and compared it with the program in Galway and, at least on the surface, DCU's program seems more thorough. It doesn't hurt that my experience at DCU was really positive.

Anyway, thanks and it's good to be back. I want to get back involved on the board.

-Ben

jdivision

micromegas wrote:

Hey everyone. Some of you might remember me from about a year ago when I was posting about coming to DCU a spring semester.

Well, I came, I saw and now I want to go back. Unless something changes, I'll be graduating from my home university in America in 2007 and I'm considering going back to DCU to get an MA in Journalism.

What I'm wondering is if anyone here is in the program or knows anything about it. I've read about it online and compared it with the program in Galway and, at least on the surface, DCU's program seems more thorough. It doesn't hurt that my experience at DCU was really positive.

Anyway, thanks and it's good to be back. I want to get back involved on the board.

-Ben

I did the BA but in general the MA is highly regarded. From working in my current job, I think most MA's graduate with an overinflated sense of their own abilities but those that are really talented do shine.

micromegas

jdivision wrote:

I did the BA but in general the MA is highly regarded. From working in my current job, I think most MA's graduate with an overinflated sense of their own abilities but those that are really talented do shine.

Yeah I can understand that. Mostly my reasoning for wanting to get an MA is because I have aspirations to one day teach journalism at a college level. I know a Ph D is typically standard fare, but getting my MA is a start in that direction.

GadgetFiend

Hi,

I completed the MA in journalism in DCU in 2004

One thing I felt when I left it was that it was definitely a career I wanted to pursue- I'd already spent 3 years in UCD arts with no drive to pursue anything in particular

I now have a comfortable job in a trade magazine, nothing too groundbreaking but nice and safe for the time being

A good course, in a great college IMHO

micromegas

Thanks for the advice!

Stargal

I'm doing the MA at the moment, and really enjoying it.

There's a good range of courses on offer each semester, and despite the short terms, they manage to pack a lot into each class! This semester we did classes in newspaper editing, online journalism, radio journalism and news reporting, while next semester will be media law, feature writing, publication design and a dissertation class, amongst others.

It's a lot of hard work; there are no exams, it's all continuous assessment, so you'll find that deadlines can really pile up. You never really get a break - you'll always be working on something.

It's also very practical - most of the classes are about 30% theory and 70% practice.

We usually have about 4 hours of lectures a day, with Fridays free (whoo-hoo!). A usual day will be a lecture in the morning time, break for an hour and then a practical class for the next two hours.

Be prepared to put a lot of work into your application for the course; we were told that somewhere between 200 and 400 people applied for just 23 places. You may have a better chance because you're coming from the US, and the college looks v favourably on overseas students but you'll still need to sell yourself and persuade them that you're the best person to be taking one of these places!

I'm a little sleepy so this isn't the most coherent thing I've ever written, but that's a rough outline of it anyway.

Drop me a PM or just write back here if you've any specific questions about the course.

Good luck!

micromegas

Excellent! Thanks so much for all the good info. I'm hoping that my previous experience in the field (three internships, including one at newstalk 106 in dublin when I was there studying) will help my application. Check for my PM!