J-School for JRB

My delicate snowflakes, now is when I talk about Grad School. It's about time. I've been struggling with what to do with my life for a while now. Maybe struggling is the wrong word. Perhaps "wrasslin'" is more apt. After the fun and excitement of getting promoted to manager at Rico wore thin, I became a bit complacent. The gig was pretty good. It was 4 blocks from my apartment, a decent salary, and I was the boss. But I wasn't doing anything that I loved. I wrassled with other occupations briefly: A vet! No, too much studying and being a doctor. Plus the pay sucked for the effort put in. A model! Well, I'm getting a bit old and I don't think my delicate ego could withstand being beautiful dirty rich. I think I kept putting of writing because it's fucking hard and you have to expose yourself to the world. Even worse than being a model. People are judging you on your intelligence rather than your looks. I can always look in the mirror and convince myself that I'm rediculously good looking, but sometimes I have crisis of confidence in my intelectual ability. I know one of my biggest challenges will be overcoming this fear and having confidence in abilities.

So, I stopped denying the ineveitable and began looking at J-Schools. My initial list was large and ambitious: Columbia. NYU. Berkeley. Northwestern. Emerson. BU. Temple. Northeastern. CUNY. Ok, so the list isn't enormous, but it is fairly ambitious. Consequently, I've eleminated all of the top schools off the list. I am fairly confident that I can't get into Columbia, NYU, Northewestern or Berkeley. These are the best J-Schools in the country. Not to say that I'm not one of the most promising writers in the country, but my records don't show it. Also, several of these school want established journalists as students and I just don't have the killer resume to show them. I'm still not sure if it was the best decision, but I'm happy with my new list, and it saves me considerable application fees.

So, my final list includes the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism, Emerson, Boston University, and The University of British Columbia. I still might apply to Northeastern, but I haven't decided yet.

So my top choice is CUNY. We complete each other. The reasons are pretty simple: It's in New York. It's extremely affordable. It has an Arts & Culture track. It's extremely affordable. It has a "New Media" tract. It's extremely affordable. They have lots of usefull classes that teach in demand skills. It's extremely affordable. It focus on getting you a job when you graduate. This all breaks down to CUNY being a GREAT VALUE. I'm talking $12,000 TOTAL for 16 months of schooling and a Master's degree. Plus there is a large chance I will be awarded a $7000 grant as a gay journalist. So, I look at that and wonder if anything BU is going to offer me will be worth $35,000. Highly doubtful. So yeah CUNY and I are down with each other. However, it's the only school I've visited, so things could change.


After CUNY comes That would be the University of British Columbia. In Vancouver. Um whoa, eh? It's beautiful: Ok I've never been out there but everyone I've ever talked to in my life seems to think Vancouver is the greatest place ever. However, most of these people have never been out there either. Vancouver benefits from really positive, overrated word of mouth. Now, I'm sure Vtown is pretty fly, but I'm sure it's not "the most beautiful place in the known world" and "so cool I'm writing an opus dedicated to its spendor." As far as I know no one has ever actually said these quotes, but this is the type of response I get when I mention I might move to BC. Still the prospect of moving out there is pretty exciting for me. It seems so exotic and idyllic and affordable and Kippy would just adore it. More pros: The Olymipcs are going to be there is 2010. Vancouver is a hotspot for movie and television production, (3rd in North America after LA and New York) areas I want to write about. BC is a center for video game production, another area I want to write about. You'll notice that everything I've mentioned is about the city and not the school. That's becuase I don't know too much about it. I know its a well respected school, and "the only graduate school of Journalism in Western Canada." So, I'm hoping I get in and Rick and I can go out there to explore this spring.

My last three schools I group into my Boston Group. The truth is I don't know too much about them except that they are expensive. Emerson, BU, and Northeastern. I'm going up to Boston this weekend to see Mom n' Pop, hang with the K-mas and go to an info session at BU this weekend, so I'm sure I'll have a better idea about that school after tomorrow. Right now I'm off to a Freelancer's Seminar at CUNY. Peace out kids have a good weekend!!

xoxo
JB