Finally, a thread where I feel at home. Disclaimer: This will be long...
I've been in broadcasting since I was 5. Seriously. My dad was a radio personality and brainwashed me at an early age, putting me on the air with him... LOL. Inevitably, I chose broadcast journalism as my major when I entered school. Being that I didn't know exactly what I wanted to do, I just did everything. At school:
The Hilltop - Staff writer
WHBC 830 AM - On-air talent; news writer
BlackCollegeView.com - Contributing writer
District Chronicles - Copy editor
BISON Yearbook - Staff writer
Add those to the internships I've been doing since high schools...
Sheridan Broadcasting - Student sales assistant
WAMO-FM (Pittsburgh) - Promotions intern
American Urban Radio Networks - Sports intern; news intern
... and you have a pretty well-rounded journalism student entering her senior year. For anyone who's not quite sure what they want to do, I advise getting involved as much as you can in campus media to determine what you like best. I'm pretty much married to radio news. My goals for this final year is to obtain one last internship and to begin working as soon as I graduate.
@ winniethepooh7... Tell your sister to get as much experience as she can on campus, and to get in contact with professional organizations to inquire about internships. (What worked for me was sending an email titled "Internship Inquiry," in which I expressed my interest in an internship and included a resume.) Also... network, network, network! Professional contacts are gold. Everyone who I meet in the business gets a card with my contact information. I'm still learning the skill myself, but in any business, the more people who know you, the better.
@ reverie (hey brother!)... I don't know if your school has communications job fairs, but Howard U. does every October, and there are always TONS of newspapers recruiting, interviewing, and testing. The Philadelphia Inquirer comes to mind... they give interested students copy [editing] tests to see if they're ready to intern or work in print. Contact local papers to see if 1) they have internship programs and 2) if they have a copy test you can take. My journalism professor told me that so many people want to be a writer (so they can see their name in a byline) that good copy editors are hard to come by. He also said that copy editing is easier to get into and that it pays better than writing. So it sounds like you're looking at a promising start in journalism!
@AnchorAlumna... I have to vehemently disagree with what you said. To tell someone to completely change their major is bad advice at best. You could be discouraging the next Katie Couric or Tom Brokaw. Or, if they're not "pretty" enough for TV, the next Michele Norris (my favorite anchor at National Public Radio... who is actually really pretty...) There are so many options when it comes to a career in journalism... writing, editing, producing, directing... for TV, radio, print, magazine, or new media (the Internet). I'm sorry if you've had a bad experience with journalism, but that doesn't allow you to discourage other people from doing something they love. Yeah, I'm still a student, but I am surrounded by people who have been in the business for 20-plus years. They're paid well, they STILL love what they do, and they're anything but "dead" at 40. Bottom line... PEOPLE WILL ALWAYS NEED NEWS. They will always need doctors to deliver them at birth, they will always need funeral directors to bury them when they die, and they will always need newspeople to tell them what happened in between. A person's experience in the business isn't determined by how the business works, but by how the person works the business.
Just my 18 cents...
~Tru