I Have the Best Major (totally not biased)
When I was applying to colleges I wasn’t really sure exactly what I wanted to do yet, and I applied as a psychology major because I loved the AP psychology class that I took my senior year of high school. I thought about it after getting my acceptances back and realized that I really didn’t want to take STEM classes in college if I could avoid it, so maybe psychology wasn’t the major for me. After picking UNC Chapel Hill as the college I would go to for undergrad, I changed my major to journalism with a focus on advertising and public relations at orientation.
I did end up adding communications as a second major later on, but my advertising major has always been my favorite and I’ve had such a good experience at the Hussman School of Journalism. There are several things that have made this major the best for me, and I will touch on a few today.
First is the professors. I can truly say I’ve had some of the best professors at the j-school, and I feel like they really care about their students and want to do everything they can to help us succeed. I couldn’t write this post without thanking Gary Kayye because without him this blog wouldn’t exist. Between the two classes I’ve had the joy of taking with him this year, I have learned and grown so much both in actual material and in confidence in myself. I also want to shout out Dana McMahan who is another amazing professor that I have gotten to take several classes with this year. She has given us so many cool projects with awesome connections that I think will really give me an edge in the industry. The last professor I want to mention is Terence Oliver. I talked about him in my post about After Effects, but he deserves a mention here as well because he always makes it so clear how much he genuinely cares about all of his students and wants to be there to support us even when we are no longer in class with him. I’ve had so many more great professors that I could honestly write a whole post about just my journalism professors, but I wanted to highlight the ones I have right now in this post.
Another thing that has made my journalism major the best is my peers. I’ve made such good friends in my journalism classes because the major is set up in a way where we can all be supportive of each other without feeling like we have to compete with each other for grades. I have a little group of people who are my grade in my sorority who are also in the journalism school, and they’ve been such a good support group over the years (couldn’t have gotten through media law without Abby, Iyana, and Graci). And when it comes to the job hunt we’re all so supportive of each other too, I couldn’t imagine doing this semester without McKenzie and Katie who are some of my biggest hype women. I’m also taking my capstone course this semester, and I’ve formed a little group that has worked together for most of the semester and they make coming to that class even more enjoyable because we all work together so well. Some of these people I’ve known for most of my college career, others I met later on, but I’m so thankful to have Olivia, Haylee, Miller, and Iyana to work with because they’re all so talented at what they do.
This leads me to my final point: I feel like my major is actually preparing me really well to enter the job market. I know I have several friends in other majors who are shocked when they hear about some of the real world experience I’ve gotten from my classes, and they wish that they felt as prepared for their future jobs. I’m thankful for every opportunity I’ve had in all of my classes to get a feel for what the real world is going to be like in this industry, and I couldn’t get these experiences without the amazing professors I mentioned earlier and the peers who help push me to be the best version of myself. So even though I know it’s a biased opinion, I really do think I have the best major and am so proud to be graduating from the Hussman School of Journalism in less than a month.
