I attended Humber College when I was about 19 years-old. It was close to home and I heard it was one of the best Journalism programs any College had to offer. I didn’t know anyone else who went to Humber before me but I did know they had created a state of the art newsroom for their senior students that had computer labs for print, and a studio for broadcast, something no other school had that I was aware of.
I just knew that I wanted to be a writer at the time and Journalism seemed like the thing to do.
The first year I took a General Arts program at Humber to boost my grades to get into the program because my high school marks weren’t what they should have been. I graduated that program and got into the Journalism program. I had no real previous experience writing except for high school, I just knew that I wanted to be a writer at the time and Journalism seemed like the thing to do.
The Journalism Print and Broadcast Program
There are two programs, the Post Graduate Journalism degree which is two years, and the Journalism Print and Broadcast Degree, which is 3 years. Obviously I wasn’t a post grad so I was in the 3 year program.
The first term you learn all of the basics; Reporting, Writing, Editing, Photography, Ethics, General Media and Communications. The second term is when things get more specific; Beat Reporting, Political Reporting, Interviewing Skills, and Broadcast Writing.
The second year is much like the first, you learn the first semester and put into practice the second semester. So first term is Research, Page Design, TV Production, Editing, Magazine Writing, Web Based Journalism and Communications. The second semester you start writing for the school newspaper, you create a magazine and write an article for the magazine as well as getting introduced into Radio and TV.
In each program you have to take an internship for at least 6 weeks in the field you had studied.
Third year is when you run the show in the newsroom. After the second year you pick between going fulltime Broadcast (a semester of radio and a semester of Television) or Print (a semester of creating the school newspaper as well as editing and providing second year students with stories. And a semester of making and writing for two different magazines). In each program you have to take an internship for at least 6 weeks in the field you had studied. I took the Print side and was the Editor for the In Focus section of the Newspaper. My class also made two magazines Sweat, a magazine about the OCAA and Convergence, a magazine that focused on the media. I interned at MTV Canada so that I could have skills in both Broadcasting and Print as to not limit my options for careers after College.
Opinions
The program was a lot busier than I had thought and a lot more difficult as well. The worst part of the program was definitely second year. Not only are you writing for your editors for the school newspaper, but you also have TV segments to film and edit, write a piece for a magazine that you are creating but also have 7 full-time classes with their own amount of workload. The best part of the program is making it to third year, being able to go into the newsroom and have your own desk; to actually create something not for the first time and know what you’re doing. All you have is a teacher advisor, it’s up to your class to put together everything.
The school prepares you for all things that have to do with your career choice and also touch down on some things that you can do outside of reporting (i.e. page design, photography, floor directing, film editing, etc). Some of the teachers are very, very good, as all of them used to be or still are doing Journalism work, but take that with a grain of salt. Being a a good Journalist doesn’t mean they can teach a class. However, this only applies to about 2 teachers I had while attending.
The class sizes are pretty big, maybe about 30+ students but when it comes to second year the class sizes literally cut into half because it is a lot of work for some people. Access to the equipment is amazing, they have all of the cameras, editing suites, cameras and computers you could ever want, it’s just a matter of getting a hold of them before anyone else does.
I would recommend this program to anyone that wants to be a Journalist.
The Verdict
I would recommend this program to anyone that wants to be a Journalist. If you want to be a writer this is not the program for you, look into creative writing programs.
I have done some freelance work since graduating, and I am about to start work as the Art Director for a wrestling magazine that’s distributed in America. I’ve utilized a lot the things I learned in the program and I’m looking forward to the rest of my career in the field.
You can visit my online portfolio here – http://bobbietubbs.wordpress.com.
(4 votes, average: 3.50 out of 5)
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James Taylor
I’m currently in the program and just survived second year, I’m looking forward to final year and internships!