Interview with Stephen

MicroEdu.com: Some said journalism-related majors are hard to apply to, but you succeeded. Some experiences?

Stephen: I agree that applying to J-schools isn't an easy job, especially for Chinese students. Why? I think there are three major reasons:

First, journalism is, to some extent, an art of language, but we Chinese students are not native English speakers;

Second, accustomed to a Chinese journalism style, we find it hard to convince professors that we can write stories with a totally different western style;

Third, J-schools, with less donations compared to nature science departments, are often lean and mean and can't offer much financial aid, which, however, is what most of us would hope to count on when living abroad.

But, I'd like to say, all these difficulties would be dwarfed by just one thing, which is the applicant's hesitation or cowardice. If you feel a target would be very hard to reach even before you set off to do it, it will definitely be! You are scared by yourself and you would always find excuses to shrink back. Then the application would become increasingly hard!

Fortunately, I didn't realize all the difficulties when I started the application work. In fact, it demonstrates how badly I was doing the pre-application research work. I just wanted to go to the States to have a look and I knew J-schools there were open to international students. So I applied, tried my best, and won. I am happy I was never beaten down by myself.

MicroEdu.com: Many college students hope they can go abroad immediately after their graduation, but you chose to work and only after working for two years did you start to apply. Why were you so patient?

Stephen: Journalism is more a professional training than a theoretical course. Textbooks alone would never let you know what it is really like to be a journalist. How to get an interviewee's trust to listen to his or her true feelings only five minutes after you two get to know each other? How to break the ice when you are interviewing very constrained people? How to ask questions that your interviewee would very likely be reluctant to answer? These are skills you could learn only through real reporting work. And only after you start to learn the skills, would you know what you lack but you might find in books. That is why I don't want to pursue a college-to-college journalism study. And now it's time for me to go back to school.

MicroEdu.com: How did your working experience help you in your application?

Stephen: I believe my working experience is the strongest part in my application package, and it did help me a lot.

I was a business reporter for an English-language newspaper the past two years, writing stories on China's telecommunication market and the economic development of Shanghai's Pudong. China's telecom market is very active these years because it's experiencing an unprecedented reform. The formerly tightly controlled market is gradually opening to foreign investors. New players are joining together to create competition, and new game rules are being established. Reporting on this market helped me a lot to develop a sharp news mind and the ability to make deep and balanced analysis.

I sent several of my stories to J-schools as writing samples. I believe they played a key role in making quite a few of them admit me.

However, writing a sample is definitely not the most important thing that my job gave me. The most valuable gain through work, I believe, is my ability, or willingness, to communicate with others.

Maybe it's hard to imagine that I was a very shy girl when I had just graduated from college. I would get nervous even before making a phone interview, as if the interviewee at the other end of the telephone line would eat me up. But, now I will be the first one among a bunch of journalists to raise my hand for a chance to ask questions in a press conference. I will insist on getting the true facts if the interviewee wants to avoid my questions. I can make a speech in front of hundreds in an audience with a smile. All my self-confidence and courage came from my working experience!

Being a journalist, you'll have the chance to meet people from all walks of society. Whether your interviewee is an ordinary peasant or a president of a multinational company, you are equal to him just because you are a journalist. Neither haughty nor humble. That's what the job taught me, because all people are equal.