The three of us made our way over to the Centennial Celebration this past week to check out the festivities and to get a few interviews squeezed in along the way. The alumni were more than happy to offer their opinions and just generally express their Tiger pride! In this article we have pinpointed five major ideas that we thought were the most important things that came out of these interviews…
1. Graduates of all ages are more than happy to come back!
Although everyone interviewed graduated during various times and had different experiences, all were more than willing to return for the Centennial Celebration this past week. Journalism majors from the classes of 1951, 1971, and 2003 all had similar positive experiences and words of wisdom for budding journalists at Mizzou.
2. Mizzou’s J-School has consistently been ahead of all other Universities across the nation.
According to Jenny Hoff, a 2003 graduate, her journalism degree from MU was beneficial while starting her career because she “didn’t have to go in with a blank slate.” She recognized that her education at Mizzou left her clearly better prepared for a job in comparison to her peers who graduated elsewhere. While they were struggling to learn the ropes, she knew how to do everything that was asked of her without any on-site training.
Similarly, Nan Bauroth, a gradute from 1971, said that she came to Mizzou all the way from California because she “knew it was the best J-School” and she has never regretted her choice to attend MU.
3. A degree from the J-School will open countless doors in your future.
A consistent theme discussed by interviewees has been that a degree from the University of Missouri opens endless doors, no matter which sequence one chooses or what they decide to do with it. Nan Bauroth graduated as a broadcast journalist but never ended up in the newsroom or behind a camera. Instead, she worked on Wall Street and as an independent journalist. However, just because her emphasis area was broadcast didn’t mean that her degree was useless. She said that her University of Missouri diploma even helped her to get her job on Wall Street. “People respect a degree from MU and know how prepared the graduates are,” she said enthusiastically.
Jenny Hoff (a broadcasting major who now works at NBC) and Patrick Terpstra (a 2003 graduate with a broadcast degree, now working for ABC) both confirmed Nan Bauroth’s statements. Despite the fact that the two have jobs relatively far from Mizzou on the east coast, they confirmed that their diplomas most definitely secured their jobs, proving that respect for a degree from the University of Missouri reaches all across the nation.
4. The Missouri School of Journalism is ahead of the curve.
Throughout the years, the journalism school at Mizzou has adapted to the changing times. When Nan Bauroth graduated in 1971, she said that broadcast journalism was a revolutionary program that didn’t get much respect. She and her fellow broadcast journalism students had to “fight prejudice” against those still stuck in the paper and ink phase, but now the broadcast school is just as well-established as the rest. Nan feels that the Convergence Journalism sequence is the in the same situation now as Broadcast was in the early seventies. She said she is “glad to know that the J-school is not fighting the digital revolution.” So, no matter if one examines the School of Journalism now or looks back thirty years ago, the University of Missouri has consistently proven to be ahead of the curve in terms of their educational standards.
In addition to this, Jenny Hoff stated that even in the few years since she graduated, the University of Missouri has made countless valuable changes to its campus and equipment. She admired the abundance of new technology and resources at hand for all MU students, and said that the country and the rest of the world can certainly expect great things from Missouri graduates in the years to come.
5. Appreciate the time you have here, and take advantages of all the resources at hand!
Patrick Terpstra expressed his extreme thankfulness not only for the School of Journalism itself, but also for all of the out-of-the-classroom experience that helped him along the way. He worked for the Maneater until his graduation in 2003 and said that it gave him the opportunity to experiment with his reporting skills before applying them to a real-world job. He is now happily an ABC general assignment reporter in Virginia and says that he owes much of his success to MU itself.
Moral of the story, you’re lucky to be here at MU!
Until later,
Kara, Mary, and Erin
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