Columbia's Master of Science Program: The 2022 Student Experience

What inspired you to apply to Columbia Journalism School?

I had spent about five years working full-time in journalism and did have an undergraduate degree in journalism. The pandemic had given me an opportunity to sit back and reflect on what I wanted to do next in my career - and it felt like the right time for me to go back to school. I was excited by the opportunity to pursue new skills, to go to a new city, to broaden my network, and to really take a step back and think about what I wanted to do as a journalist. So I applied to Columbia. I did not apply to any other journalism schools. For me, Columbia offered the best experience that I could hope to participate in. It was really the only school I wanted to go to - or could justify going to - if I was going to take a year out of the workforce. And I really loved the opportunities that Columbia offered: the caliber of the professors, the chance to be in New York City. So all of those things factored into my decision.

What appealed to you about the Master of Science Program?

I felt like there was a lot of flexibility afforded by the M.S. program. You had more opportunities to explore different beat areas - and that was one of my considerations in coming to Columbia. I wanted to take the opportunity to do types of journalism that I hadn't done before. I'd been a business reporter for five years. At Columbia, I got to do some social issues reporting, some legal reporting, and I got to play around with different skills, including video production and documentary production.

What was it like starting the M.S. with the reporting module that sends you out into New York City?

It was a very intense but rewarding experience. The class that I had was with Professor Keith Gessen, and every week we looked at a new beat or topic area. One week we did court reporting. Another week, we did community-based reporting. So it was a lot, especially for an international student with no real foot-hold or network in New York City. If I could give any recommendations to incoming students, I would tell them to consider some of the topic areas they might be interested in exploring, but also maybe doing a bit of leg work to have some contacts on the ground, so that week one, they actually are prepared to go out and report. I learned a lot in that class, even though I had several years of journalism experience. I would recommend being very open. It is a bit of a ride and it is a journey, but there's so much to learn. And I think students are well-served. You get out of it what you put into it.

How did you decide to customize your Master of Science experience?

I spent a lot of time reading up on the different course offerings and the faculty who are leading those courses. And I would definitely recommend setting aside the time to do that because there might be courses that you hadn't necessarily thought of. There were certainly courses I wasn't aware of - even having done my research before coming to Columbia, that caught my eye once I was here.

I wanted to push myself out of my comfort zone as a journalist and try types of journalism in which I had no experience. In the spring, I took "News Products," which is such a rewarding and interesting class. Before taking it, I had not really thought about how you package products and come up with new ideas for launching different journalism products. I would highly recommend that one. In "Multimedia Storytelling," I produced a documentary, which is something I had never done before. That class was one of the hardest courses I have ever taken, but I really enjoyed it.

What are the most important skills you developed at Columbia?

Even though I had journalism experience, I feel like my reporting skills are now just that much sharper. I feel like it is such a wonderful thing to be able to go to a job interview or into a new job knowing how to get yourself set up to really succeed. Doing video storytelling or documentary is something that I knew nothing about before going into the M.S. program, and I now feel confident that I could spend the time to work on another project or successfully pitch a project along those lines.

I also think that knowing how to generate story ideas and how to pitch were probably some of the most valuable things that I learned and honed at Columbia. It's really hard, and I think it takes a long time to get to a point where you're successful at pitching. And I think even some of the most successful journalists will tell you they don't bat a thousand. But knowing what goes into a good pitch, knowing how to successfully represent yourself when you're pitching, and knowing how to come up with good ideas for stories are such a big part of the industry, whether you're full-time employed or freelance. And I think that Columbia really set me up to feel much more confident doing that.

How did you approach career development at Columbia?

I took advantage of some of the one-on-one times with the Career Development staff. I also attended a lot of the "meet the media" sessions and any of the career development virtual sessions when I could. And if I couldn't attend, I certainly did watch the videos and took full advantage of the website and the database for all of the opportunities that are available throughout the year. My approach, because I knew that I had a job on hold for me back home in Vancouver, was to be a bit more strategic in what I applied for, and I would recommend any students to try and do the same just because the career landscape can be totally overwhelming. There are so many opportunities, and I don't think it will serve you well in your studies or your career to try and pursue everything. You just really have to learn how to prioritize.

I focused on trying to take advantage of and applying for a lot of the journalism grant and fellowship opportunities, including the ones exclusive to Columbia students, because I feel like your chances of getting those are greater because you're not competing against people from other schools or other journalists. And, fortunately, I did actually end up receiving support for my work now, which is really great.

How would you describe the Columbia Journalism School student community?

I think someone told me before I attended J-School that the people that you'll go through this program with will end up being some of your closest friends and people whom you'll cross paths with professionally time and again throughout the coming several decades. I think that's really true. I have had some wonderful friendships that have come out of the program. I found on the whole that everyone's quite supportive, quite keen, happy and excited to be partaking in this program. And it was really rewarding to meet people from literally all over the world with different levels of experience and different educational backgrounds. It made it a very rich learning environment, and I felt as though I learned a lot from my peers.

I think there's sometimes the perception, or fear, that going to a world-class school at a world-class university is going to mean that you're in a very cut-throat, competitive environment. And I wondered about that when I went to this program. But, that was not my experience at all. I found professors and students alike were very warm and very generous with their time and insight. It was a great overall student experience.

What advice do you have for incoming M.S. students?

I think the biggest piece of advice I would offer is to be very clear on what your goals are, and to stick to those goals. Everyone comes to this program with different levels of experience and different intentions or plans. Some people want to stay in New York, others don't. Some people may find that they're not going to stay into journalism, they're going to pivot into maybe more of a product side of the media industry or what have you. Figure out what you want to prioritize because you cannot do it all.

My own goals were to explore different areas of journalism - to take the opportunity to figure out what I like, what I don't like, what I might want to do outside of what I'd already done, to build my network and then to pursue some funding opportunities to support my journalism moving forward. I used those goals to guide what I wanted to do over the course of the year, and to really just soak in all of the learning I could in my classes.

What would you say to someone considering applying to Columbia Journalism School?

I would say that it certainly takes a lot of effort to apply, but you can apply and then make your decision later. It's not a binding commitment. Going through the application process can be helpful to your ultimate decision. There's really no harm in applying and giving it a shot. And then, if you're accepted, you can make your decision. That's how I tend to approach things.

Beyond that, I think it's always a trade-off if somebody's working full-time to take time away to do a full-time educational program, but it's really about where you want to go professionally and whether you think taking some time to invest in yourself is going to get you closer to that.

Aside from everything I learned at Columbia, being at the Journalism School was just a wonderful way to spend nine-and-a-half months: getting to live in New York City, getting to be around really some of the best journalists in the industry globally, and getting to learn from them, getting to network, getting to meet other up and coming and emerging journalists. I think it was the best thing I could have done for me at that time, and I'm really glad I took the time to do it. There are a lot of considerations, and I think it can feel like a risk and it can be a risk, but I think that the upside and the reward is really, really great. So if someone is in the position to even be considering going to Columbia, I would urge people to take the next step to apply, connect with people, do a little more research, and see what happens.