Tufts Blogs

Four years ago, when I was deciding between colleges, there was a distinct divide in my mind between schools with journalism programs and schools without them. I knew that journalism was the field I wanted to pursue after graduation, but in an industry that was evolving so much each day, I didn’t want to spend my whole college career taking classes and developing skills that might turn out to be irrelevant when I actually entered the workforce. I’d narrowed my choice down to my few top schools, and Tufts was still in the running.

Tufts does not have a journalism major or minor, and there are few classes dedicated specifically to journalism. I’d been accepted to a well-respected journalism program at another school, and to some of the people I asked, the choice seemed obvious. Why would I intentionally select a school that didn’t have a program in the field I wanted to pursue? Obviously, I ended up choosing Tufts, and I stand by the decision now more than ever.

Journalism is a field grounded in a liberal arts education. Journalists report on many different subjects, and as a result, learn about myriad disciplines through a variety of people. There are a slew of critical skills that good journalists must hone, but among the most important are the abilities to write and communicate clearly; to sift through lots of information and find the most significant elements; to check and double-check information for accuracy; to track down the right people and ask them the right questions. This skillset is developed over time. A liberal arts environment—in which students are constantly confronted with different subjects and different methods to assess and present their learning—is the perfect setting for a journalism student to thrive.

After a few semesters at Tufts, I decided to major and English and minor in Communications and Media Studies (CMS). The CMS program is the closest thing to a journalism program at Tufts, offering courses in various areas of media,as well as the opportunity to intern in the media industry for credit. Through the CMS department, I’ve participated in two different internships for credit: my sophomore year at a publishing house and film production company called Walden Media, and my junior year at Boston magazine.  

While at Boston magazine, I gained the opportunity to pitch and write for the magazine’s blogs, as well as have a story published in print. I ended up staying on there from the spring throughout the summer, and the experience proved to be invaluable. The opportunity to intern for credit as part of my spring semester courseload was what encouraged me to apply for and accept the internship, and this ended up acting as the gateway to a seven-month period of direct work experience in the field. While commuting to the city (sometimes between classes) could be a hassle at times, my internship experiences are some of my fondest memories and taught me about journalism in a way that I couldn’t have learned in a classroom.

The connections and experience I gained from for-credit internships also helped me to land a summer internship in New York, where I worked at the Columbia Journalism Review (CJR) as an editorial intern. Each of these internships helped me to develop and strengthen a different set of skills that I will need to become a successful journalist after graduation, and also offered me the opportunity to diversify my published clips. (Here are a few things I wrote for CJR, a magazine whose subject matter rarely overlaps with Boston magazine’s.)

I don’t always have to go off campus to find opportunities for journalistic experience. Since my first semester at Tufts I have been very involved with the student magazine called the Tufts Observer. I started out contributing a few stories my freshman year before coming on staff as a staff writer, and eventually moving into section editing. Last semester, I was the magazine’s Editor-in-Chief. This role introduced me to a host of responsibilities (like managing the budget, determining editorial content, organizing the staff, and communicating with vendors) that I would not have otherwise been exposed to while working solely as an intern or a student. Over these four years, the Observer has been a great outlet for improving my pitching, writing, and editing skills, while also teaching me a great deal about the visual side of magazine journalism.

I’ve also taken a handful of Tufts classes that were particularly relevant to my pursuit of journalism. Classes through the English department, such as Introductory Journalism and Nonfiction Writing, have helped me to perfect my writing skills. Courses from other departments, like Media & Society (Sociology) Children & Mass Media (Child Development) were also instrumental in this liberal arts approach to journalism and media education. And, while I may not have appreciated their importance at the time, I now realize that even my statistics and economics classes will prove incredibly useful as well.

It’s my last semester at Tufts—as much as I hate to admit it. In these precious final months, I’m trying to get as much as I can out of my Tufts education. In January, I participated in the CMS “winternship” program at the Boston Globe. During my short internship at the Globe, I worked closely with a writer for the paper’s Sunday magazine and completed some special projects. In the end, I made connections with editors at the magazine, and I’ve freelanced a few pieces over the past few months since the internship ended. (Who knew I’d ever find myself writing about the Super Bowl?) I’m also taking a few journalismclasses this semester through the Experimental College: one in multimedia journalism and another focusing on women’s magazines. (The “Ex College” brings in experts from their fields to come teach non-traditional courses at Tufts.)

Journalism is a process; it’s all about searching, questioning, sifting, and curating as a means to finding and best presenting a story. I could have gone to a school with a traditional undergraduate journalism program. But the liberal arts approach at Tufts has allowed me to follow this same process, but instead of building a story, I’m building the best education Tufts can offer me. 

Molly Mirhashem is a senior at Tufts University majoring in English and minoring in Communications and Media Studies.  She is an editor for the Tufts Observer Magazine and is a member of the Tufts cross-country and track and field team.