Fuck Yeah Brown University

Josiah: I also received a B in Algebra 2! It’s honestly not a big deal. Grades are not everything, I promise you. Sure, you need to do well. But they take more things into consideration than just that. Also, that was in your freshman year, so really don’t be hard on yourself.

Like a lot of professions, in the general world of writing there’s some debate about whether having a degree helps or not. (ex: you can got to film school, but do you have to go to film school?)

But as a History major graduating in a month and an aspiring journalist: NOT A DEAL BREAKER. OMG no. No no no no no. Some thoughts:

• Its true that journalism school probably more systematically teaches you how to write “hard news.” But I am very suspicious it could be better at teaching you how to write well as compared to Brown. Brown has some of the most enlightening Creative Non-Fiction courses in the country. The English and Lit Arts departments are incredible. And if you go to Brown and take ANY humanities classes, I promise your writing will improve spectacularly.
  
  
• Additionally, the news world is moving away from hard news. Jobs in journalism are increasingly for online publications, for magazines, for blogs. Even the NY Times and traditionally hard news organizations are moving more and more towards more casual, free-form writing. I know someone who works there on the digital side and he says even these stodgy monoliths know that creative news writing is the news of the future.
  
  
• Writing for any of the publications on campus will, I bet, give you an even better sense of how it actually is to write and organize news. There’s the hard news newspaper (Brown Daily Herald), the blog (our parent site Blog Daily Herald), our hip features newspaper (The Indy), our less hip but more accessable newspaper insert (Post- Magazine), our political journal (Brown Political Review), our literary journals (too many to name) ETC. At least, that’s been true with me.
  
  
• All you have to do is look at the alumni. Off the top of my head of people that I know personally, there are recent Brown alums at:
  
  - Mother Jones
  - NPR / WNYC
  - NY Times
  - The Atlantic
  - Numerous documentary filmmakers
  - Huffington Post… you get the idea

Now let’s look at Wikipedia and revel in 1990’s alums from Brown who are now doing cool stuff in news:

• David S. Rohde (A.B. 1990) – Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, escaped from 7-month Taliban captivity in 2009
• Kathryn Schulz (A.B. 1996)—contributor to the Freakonomics blog and freelance journalist
• Gareth Cook (A.B. 1991) – Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting, Boston Globe, for writing about stem cell research
• Christopher L. Hayes (A.B. 2001) – Editor of The Nation and host of All In with Chris Hayes on MSNBC
• Taina Hernandez (A.B. 1996) – anchor of World News Now on ABC
• A.J. Jacobs – journalist and author, The Know-It-All: One Man’s Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World, The Year of Living Biblically
• Amy Sohn (A.B. 1995) – columnist, New York magazine; novelist, Run Catch Kiss and Sex and the City: Kiss and Tell
• Vanessa Vadim (A.B. 1990), independent documentary producer and cinematographer, Quiltmakers of Gee’s Bend (2005), Fire in Our House (1995)
• Rory Kennedy (A.B. 1990) – Emmy Award winning documentary producer, director, and writer, American Hollow (1999), Fire in Our House (1995), Ghosts of Abu Ghraib

AND MOST IMPORTANTLY:

• Ira Glass (A.B. 1982) – host and producer, National Public Radio, This American Life

Here are the rest if you wanna see a full spread (though this doesn’t encompass all the people who graduated in the 00’s who are out there kicking ass right now!!)

I will be a journalist goddammit, I promise to you and the universe.
And I went to Brown and feel more prepared than anything.

- The Blue Room Chocolate Chip Cookie