The University of Maryland

So I just returned from the first leg of my three-pronged "Master's in Journalism" tour: the University of Maryland. I would say my impression was about 75 percent positive.

First the good parts:

I loved the people. I met with the associate dean, the graduate coordinator, a professor and a handful of the current master's students. All of them gave me more than an hour of their time. The fact that it was Good Friday and there were hardly any classes going on may have freed up some of their time. But they all seemed genuinely interested in answering all my questions and just generally chatting.

I liked DC. I saw the cherry blossoms (beautiful--see photo below) and the FDR Memorial (powerful) and got to catch up with some old friends. I even found a cool little sports bar/lounge that I could see becoming a regular hangout if I do decide to spend next year at Maryland.

I really like the price. Maryland is about half the cost of my other two schools, Northwestern and Columbia. And I was told that it would be a snap for me to get a graduate assistantship, all of which provide 10 free tuition credits per semester and some of which apparently pay up to $21,000 for a year of working 20 hours a week. That's more than I make now working 65 hours a week. Between an assistantship and my Americorps award, it's conceivable that I get my master's at Maryland and graduate debt-free. That's huge.

Now the not-as-good stuff. The curriculum is a mixed bag. I would be required to take some classes that are very similar, if not identical, to some I've already taken at KU. That seems like a waste. It will take a full semester before I can work in the DC news bureau, which is really the experience I'm going for.

The other thing is that the main reason I'm going to grad school is to get a really good newspaper/magazine job when I get out. I think the other two schools might have a slight advantage in that department. The dean admitted that Maryland's program is more of an up-and-comer, whereas Northwestern and Columbia are old standbys that have larger networks of journalism grads. That being said, he also said he couldn't recall a master's student during his tenure who didn't get a job soon after graduating, though he noted that not all the jobs were in journalism. At least two of the current students I talked to had been published in the Baltimore Sun, so that's great exposure.

So, it's not perfect, but then maybe perfect doesn't exist. Maryland is pretty darn good. And there's a decent chance I could do it debt free, so what do I have to lose, right? Unless either of the other schools can come up with a darn good financial aid package, I'd have to say Maryland is the frontrunner.