Welcome

Welcome to A J-School Year.

We hope that during the next year (nine months really), you'll stop in from time to time to get an idea of what goes on in a modern American journalism school from the students' perspective. Ideally, students at other schools, professionals and students in high school considering a career in journalism will all learn something. In the process, our students will also learn a bit about "blogging."

The idea for this blog started with a call from a major newspaper's recruiter wondering why more minorities did not go into copy editing. I could speculate, but realized that the best people to tell us were students themselves. Ernie Wiggins, a fellow former professional who also teaches at the University of South Carolina j-school, and I got to talking, and what emerged was the idea of using this blog to provide a broader insight on a lot of other things, too: How do you handle the demands of juggling reporting classes that require lots of time with other classes, working, and - yeah - a life? What do you do when you begin to have doubts that this is the career (with its long hours and low pay) that you want to pursue? Oh, and how do you get through Fisher's editing class?

We're recruiting about two-dozen students, from all our majors, to tell you. And no, these are not just A students. You need to hear from everyone, if you're going to get an honest picture.

I have another Web log, Common Sense Journalism, from which I spout. So I and professor Wiggins will largely stay out of the way and let the students speak.

School starts in less than a week, and we'll start posting before that, so stop by regularly to see what we're up to.

And have a great j-school year!

Doug Fisher