Journalism&New Media vs English&New Media

mud

Hi,

I'm having a reaally hard time trying to decide between doing English or Journalism, I've arranged to meet the two course directors but would love some feedback from people currently doing either course.

Just a quick overview of course content, hours etc and maybe what you hope to do afterwards career wise

Thanks for any / all help

mud

thattequilagirl

Hi mud,

I wouldn't reccomend either course to be perfectly honest.

I was making the same decision as you four years ago, and I chose NME because I felt it was broader and would leave me a wider range of career options. However, the course is a total disappointment, and most of my class think the same.

The focus of the course is post-colonialism, Marxism, feminism and post-modernism, in relation to literature and cultural studies.

The only decent thing about it career-wise is technical writing, but they are horrible modules with lots of labs.

Journalism and new media would be a lovely course, but I'm not sure how much it would prepare you for a career in the industry. I think it would be a better idea to pick an area you would like to focus on in a journalistic career like politics, international relations, economics etc, do your undergrad in that and then maybe the journalism masters.

rororoyourboat

I have to admit that I agree completely with above, although I study Irish and New Media. The only practical aspecto the course is Tecnical Writing, but it does feel like you have to fight for every single mark and the amount of work put in is disproportionate to the amount of marks you recieve. Also, it just seems like it's a showcase for Adobe, as (so far - 3rd year) we've only ever used their programmes.

rmacm

rororoyourboat wrote: »

Also, it just seems like it's a showcase for Adobe, as (so far - 3rd year) we've only ever used their programmes.

Adobe products tend to be the defacto standard for technical publishing, products such as Framemaker are used a huge amount for writing documentation for software (a bit more useful than stuff like MS Word when it comes to handling large and complex files).

ergonomics

rororoyourboat wrote: »

I have to admit that I agree completely with above, although I study Irish and New Media. The only practical aspecto the course is Tecnical Writing, but it does feel like you have to fight for every single mark and the amount of work put in is disproportionate to the amount of marks you recieve. Also, it just seems like it's a showcase for Adobe, as (so far - 3rd year) we've only ever used their programmes.

Have to agree here. I'm also in Irish and New Media. Technical Writing is really useful but it definitely is completely based around Adobe products. rororoyourboat - you'll get to use even more Adobe stuff in 4th year, yay! Eoin Devereux's Sociology of the Media module in 1st year was also good. Any module beginning with CS or CU are good in theory but not great in practice.

One of the posters here is from New Media and Journalism. I'll have to let him to know to give you his opinion. I do know they have studied shorthand as well as some layout, which seems to be a hell of a lot more practical than anything I've done so far.

GMFF

ergonomics wrote: »

Have to agree here. I'm also in Irish and New Media. Technical Writing is really useful but it definitely is completely based around Adobe products. rororoyourboat - you'll get to use even more Adobe stuff in 4th year, yay! Eoin Devereux's Sociology of the Media module in 1st year was also good. Any module beginning with CS or CU are good in theory but not great in practice.

One of the posters here is from New Media and Journalism. I'll have to let him to know to give you his opinion. I do know they have studied shorthand as well as some layout, which seems to be a hell of a lot more practical than anything I've done so far.

Hey, I have Journalism and New Media first on my CAO and have up to now been very confident about it......AGH!

jkeire

Well I'm doing Journalism and New Media and I think it's grand. We do Journalistic Writing and Professional Skills for journalism as modules, which are really interesting.
We also have our own working newsroom, talks from industry experts every Thursday evening and lecturers that are really good and totally approachable.
If the OP wants to know more about the course, give me a PM.

mud

thanks for the replies everyone, Leaning more towards journalism at the mo, cheers again and if anyone else wants to comment please do

Chowburger

I'm in my third year of New Media and English, and feel like I should pipe up and say that I'm enjoying it a lot. The technical writing modules are a bit of a slog, sure, but that's only a fraction of it. On the whole, I've found the classes enjoyable and rewarding, as long as I've been willing to put in the work. You'll end up with 12-15 hours a week on your timetable, but be prepared to spend a load more doing the reading for lectures.

In terms of career prospects, I don't think it's any less practical than other Arts courses (though I can't speak for the Journalism course - I don't know what that consists of). I got a great co-op placement out of it, and I think I'll feel pretty confident when I graduate next year. But in the end it's all up to your personal preference.