Northwestern University

For my last post, I wanted to let everyone know I got accepted to graduate school at Northwestern University! I will be studying at the Medill School of Journalism and will begin in the fall. Medill is one of the most well respected and highly ranked journalism schools in the country and I feel very blessed to be admitted to such a prestigious university.

The program is only one year long (12 months) and I will have my Masters of Science in the Summer of 2012. The year is divided into four quarters. In the first quarter I will be taking some basic reporting and media law/ethics courses. During the second quarter I will be working in the downtown Chicago newsroom where I will be working just like a professional journalist, producing stories on deadlines. In the third and fourth quarters I will be working in my concentration, which right now will be TV and broadcasting, but that may change.

I am really excited about going up to Chicago for a year and studying journalism. This is a tremendous opportunity for me and I am sure this will greatly benefit by career as an aspiring journalist.

There is a lot of debate about whether or not it is important for journalists to have a master's degree. You can get a job with out it and not be in debt. And Northwestern is a pretty expensive school, even though it is only a one year program. But my thought process has always been that if I can get into one of the best schools, it will be worth it. The experiences and contacts I will make at Medill will be invaluable and will propel my career faster than if I got a low-level job or internship.

My dream is to work for a big city daily newspaper or a network like ESPN. I could work for the Star News for two years, then move to a bigger city like Charlotte, then to another city, and another, then hopefully end up in a market like New York or Chicago. But that would take probably 10 to 15 years. A degree from Northwestern would put me where I want to be, faster.

But it will be important to not only complete my degree, but to leave my mark on the program. I want to tackle challenging stories and write about important issues. I want to take advantage of everything Medill has to offer and excel as a collegiate journalist. I look forward to taking on this challenging opportunity and I am grateful for my experiences at UNCW that have lead me to this place.