Recent Media Job Cuts And Its Affect On My Future
From the start of my college experience to present day I’ve gone through and tried many paths to prepare for my future, from wanting to be an engineer, to a biologist, and now finally settling on being a Journalist. Suffice to say my interests vary, but I think I’ve finally found my true passion in writing. The field of writing, however can apply for both English majors and Journalism, but my main appeal for choosing Journalism over an English major was the availability of future jobs. Journalism allows for focus in many fields, and gives opportunities to branch out, thus making the possibility for jobs greater. However I have recently had to rethink this process of reasoning after learning about the recent crash in jobs for Journalists.
Digital Media outlets are participating in a purge of their employees, even including large, well-known companies like Buzzfeed and Vice Media. In the past three weeks there have been over 2,000 layoffs from jobs involving the media. Even unionized staff are losing their jobs. Being a college student, this sounds like the worst possible scenario, spending years investing in your education to get a respectable job, just to have it ripped away?
There is definitely a heightened sense of anxiety that is now following me around. These layoffs have shown that I need to work even harder, write even better, and diversify myself as much as possible to set myself apart from other Journalists. I plan on using the knowledge I have gained from minoring in Biology to help set me apart as a Journalist who can take on complex scientific writing. My background of being a division 1 student athlete here at LIU Brooklyn can also give an advantage, in both sports writing and time management skills. Skillsets can also set me apart from others, for example I have been doing makeup art for years now, and have an instagram documenting the looks I have done. This could prove valuable for writing in topics including beauty and cosmetics. I also have been working on graduating a year early, in order to start my masters sooner and be in the workforce sooner. This can set me apart for how much effort and time I have to dedicate in order to obtain enough credits to graduate an entire year ahead of my class. This also gives the chance to gain more experience at a faster rate than my peers. Hopefully future employers would see this as valuable and wish to both hire me and keep me on their teams.
I’m not yet sure exactly where I wish to go with my Journalism major. Preferably a well paying, enjoyable job, in a nice location, that gives the opportunity to write about topics that are intriguing. I know this may be out of reach for my first job fresh out of LIU, but my goal is to be able to build up my resume and find out what type of jobs work for me, and which ones don’t, in order to reach an end goal of a “dream” job. And if this “dream” job ends up following suit of these other companies and fires me, then it is just another step to finding a better fit job.
Resources on the recent job losses: