It’s been a whole three years since I was a senior in high school trying to decide where I wanted to go and what I wanted to major in. Ithaca College had two majors in particular that I was trying to choose between- journalism and writing. The fact that Ithaca College had both of these majors is one of the reasons that I decided to go there; not a whole lot of schools had either, let alone both.
I wound up choosing journalism at the assistant dean’s recommendation because it’s the harder major to transfer into and if I had not applied in and decided later on that I wanted to switch, I may not have been able to. I still considered a double major in both journalism and writing, though, because the writing major still greatly appealed to me.
On accepted students day, I asked one of the professors who was around asking questions whether or not it would be possible to double major in journalism and writing.
“Don’t do it, that’s a waste,” he said. “They’re so similar and you’ll wind up getting the same job anyway.”
I was pretty surprised at how quick he was to shut me down. Journalism revolves strictly around news, whereas writing could range from so many different things, from creative fiction to creative nonfiction to technical writing to poetry. Yes, many journalists write, but not all of them write all the time. Yes, some writers may also be journalists, but they may also just be novelists or poets and have no interest in reporting the news.
Each major offers its own experience. The journalism major teaches you to report the news truthfully and efficiently both through writing and through a camera, as well as gives you knowledge on the foundation of the practice. Writing focuses more on… well, various types of writing. You can choose a concentration in creative fiction, creative nonfiction, or technical writing, or you can do a mix of the three and have no set concentration. You will be writing more essays and have more opportunities to make up stories or tell your own. Within journalism, you will certainly not be making up any stories, nor will you ever be telling your own.
It only took me one semester to realize that while journalism was something I enjoyed, it certainly was not my calling in life, and I found myself looking for new majors online just a few weeks into the semester. While I did not change my major to writing, it was one of the several majors that I was considering switching into, and very heavily too.
If I were to go back three years to when I was beginning to apply to schools, I think I may have chosen writing over journalism, because I think that I would have liked it a lot better. However, my time as a journalism major was certainly not wasted; I appreciate everything that I learned in my journalism classes, and I almost feel as if they were necessary for me to take. I was never a confident interviewer, and the thought of talking to people used to make me extremely nervous. Thanks to my classes and the school paper forcing me to interview people, I am so much more comfortable not only at interviewing but at talking to people in general.
The two majors offer completely different things, and while I will say that it is possible to obtain the same job with either major, they offer two completely different experiences, so if you want to major in both, go for it. You will learn completely different things within each one. You can be both a journalist and a writer, or you can be one and not the other.
Both are absolutely essential in our everyday lives; the world would not be what it is without them. Lots of different majors are capable of landing the same job, so you should just study what you love; study what will make you want to get out of bed in the morning and go to class with a smile on your face.
