DT553-Heads speak up!

fantacan

Just wondering what anyone doing the Journalism With A Language course makes of it. Hoping to be joining you next year!

hounddog66

Hi I'm a 2nd year journalism student in dit. The first thing I would say is that it really is important that you take an interest in the language you study. The language takes up one third of the lecture hours and about more than half the assignments you will do are related to the language. If you don't value the language I'd suggest dcu is a better option. But then again in dit you get to go away for a semester to the country of the language you study, which will be great fun I'm sure.

Either then that it is great. In the journalism lectures you do really fun stuff. First year is a bit of a drag but in second year you get to independantly run a newspaper and are shown how to edit radio recordings and so forth. It's all really good fun, and a lot of the journalism lectures don't involve sitting in a lecture listening to some auld eeijit waffle on. They are about getting out on the street and doing things for yourself.

If you have any more questions ask away?

Frankiestylee

As Hounddog (Ya Deutshe Hunde ya!) said, the language is a huge part of the course. It's good craic and interesting, but it's a really big part so if you're counting the days til you're finished Irish/French/German, head to DCU. The DIT course is better but the language is compulsory.

Make sure you're interested in Journalism. So many people in the course don't really care about it and just seem to be going through the motions. Make sure it's something you want to do rather then just desperately looking for some reason to go to college. Don't just treat it like some random Art course for example (I'm sure that's offensive to loads of Arts students and it's a generalisation, but loads of them do it because they don't know what else to do.)

mikelmessi

Graduated from this course last year and the advice above is accurate. Pick your language carefully and go to all of those lectures. In my year (and others I think) there was a big drop out rate but I think that's down to people who just randomally put choices on thE CAO.
The Erasmus option is a great one in third year, even if you're doing Irish you can go the US or Holland.
Ultimately you can get as much out of the course as you want although some people in my year coasted through without doing much journalistic work, treating it as an arts degree and have no intention of going into the media.
Jobswise our reputation seems to be higher than DCU at the moment (apparently we all have great shorthand :eek: ) . Most of my year who have actively pursued work have managed to get some.

Frankiestylee

What I gather from the DCU course (and I'm open to correction here) is that a lot of the subjects are being made optional, including shorthand. If there are optional subjects it means that when you get your degree at the end you might have all the things an employer would expect... or you might not. At least with the DIT course the degree means everyone has done shorthand etc.

fantacan

Well I'm getting the general message: The course is enjoyable but only choose it if it's what you're sure you want to do. Choose your language carefully and be ready to do alot of work with it.

Am still quite sure it's just the course for me. Hope to see ye around next year then. Thanx a million!

Frankiestylee

Heh heh, good luck, I'll buy ya a pint at the journo xmas party