3 Misconceptions About a JMC Major
At the university with a selection of more than 10 various majors one of the most creative ones is Journalism and Mass Communication. As part of this educational program we shoot documentaries, learn to write scripts, study photo reporting and sound engineering. But it is a big mistake to believe that all we do is create content and have no sense of media fundamentals. Nope, we simulate the work of PR agencies in teams, study the media law and ethics and a bunch of other theoretical subjects, which are very important for mastering JMC science. Unfortunately, this is not the only misconception regarding this major, and so we decided to debunk three more of the most popular myths about JMC at the American University in Bulgaria.
1. “With JMC you won’t succeed in life as you can only work in a newspaper.”
This one is our favorite. During the process of major selection many parents put pressure on their children to study economics or politics only because journalism is not serious business in their minds. And the mass communication part is seemingly discarded due to an incomplete understanding of this abstract combination of words (by the way, this leads to the second myth). Working in a newspaper is a matter of preference due to the fact that we study not only journalism, but also mass communication. Our graduates get their career pathways both in newspapers and magazines and in film production, marketing industry, media holdings, and PR agencies throughout the world. Read the interview with our 2008 alumna about how she left for masters in US and covered Oscars Ceremony 2019 as a press agent. We believe this is success!
Or another story about a 26-year-old AUBG alumnus. He is a translator, marketing content specialist and freelance journalist who wrote for many Bulgarian and international media platforms including BBC Knowledge, EurActiv.com and Balkan Insight.
2. “You don’t have to study to be a journalist; you won’t learn anything fundamentally new.”
Again, this myth comes from the past, when journalism was mainly associated with reporting, and the most crucial skill was decent language possession, which nowadays every average high schooler has. But we believe that ability to organize interviews from scratch, to shoot documentaries, to make animations in Adobe After Effects along with competent press release writing indeed are new skills for modern high school graduates. Moreover, not every university graduate can boast of such a diverse set of skills even though the modern labor market sets high standards for young professionals. But we are proud not to be among those as unemployment rate among journalism and mass communication alumni of American University in Bulgaria is 0% which demonstrates high educational standards at our alma mater.
Yeah, in the age of digitalization literate writing is no longer enough. So even in order to be a journalist you will have to learn with enthusiasm! Watch the interview with an AUBG graduate of 2015 who got a job in television right after graduation. According to her employer’s opinion, ”Her knowledge was more than enough.”
3. “It’s boring.”
No. Just no.
The learning process is fascinating since the curriculum includes both theoretical and practical subjects with the predominance of the last. Get ready to walk around the town with the recorder in search of birds singing for sound design class, to take pictures of strangers for digital photojournalism and to interview the chief editors of fashion magazines for hosting and interviewing. The other reason why students of the journalism and mass communication faculty have no time to be bored is because there are so many opportunities for personal and professional growth on busy campus: some of them undergo professional internships at the university’s marketing and events offices. By designing posters, writing articles for the website and covering on-campus events students practice and apply skills they learned in a classroom to the real-world tasks. Others shoot and edit videos for university clubs or get a freelance job starting from junior year.
And this is what we call diverse experience. After all, only by expanding our knowledge do we increase our chances of success in the modern world. Only in this way we can be sure of our own competence, which is the key to the professional success.
Anastasiia Gerasimchuk is a senior student majoring in Journalism and Mass Communication at the American University in Bulgaria. Using her knowledge and experience of alumni fellows, she debunks some prejudices both she and her JMC friends have heard from their parents before enrollment at AUBG.
