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Incoming M.A. Students

Congratulations on your admission to the M.A. program.

M.A. orientation will begin on the morning of Thursday, August 28, 2008. Between now and then, you will likely be busy with current jobs, moving, etc. But there are a few things you might want to think of doing between now and then, which are outlined below. This memo also includes a summary of important school policies and procedures. Please familiarize yourself with them.

Course Schedule

One significant change in the schedule of courses has been approved. For the coming year, the Evidence and Inference course will be a one-semester course, meeting in the fall (T/TH 2:30-4). In the spring there will be a new-media production course offered that will give students the chance to apply lessons learned in Evidence and Inference to the practice of online journalism. In addition, the course credit for the thesis has been raised to six credits in the spring, to reflect the amount of time the thesis requires in that term.

Here is the roster of courses for the coming academic year:

Fall
Seminar in discipline (arts, business, politics, science) 6 credits
Evidence and Inference 3 credits
History of Journalism for Journalists 3 credits
Master’s thesis 3 credits
Elective 3 credits

Spring
Seminar in discipline (arts, business, politics, science) 6 credits
Master’s thesis 6 credits
Elective 3 credits
Elective 3 credits

Seminars in major meet T/TH between 9 and 12 a.m. (except the business concentration, which meets T/TH from 4:15-6 p.m.)
Evidence and Inference meets T/TH 2:30-4
The history course meets on Wednesday from 5-7
Thesis meetings are scheduled by advisers with their advisees, but Friday afternoon is a popular time.

M.A. Thesis

Summer is a good time to begin thinking about topics for your theses. The thesis is an ambitious work of journalism of about 10,000 words (or the equivalent in broadcast or new-media projects). It offers you an opportunity to delve deeply into a subject and to make use of your growing expertise in your field of study to deepen your engagement with the issues raised by your topic. You will begin work on it when you arrive, and the first draft will be due on Monday, February 2, with the final version due on Monday, April 20. You should, therefore, try to find a topic that you want to spend months working on intensely. You should also think about how easy it will be for you to research the topic in and around New York City. Travel away from the city is difficult to fit in with course work, and of course is expensive. While we hope to have some funds available for this purpose, such funds are quite limited, so a topic you can do mostly from the NYC area is advisable. Read more about the MA thesis

Electives

This is a good time to begin the search for outside electives. The responsibility for finding the proper outside courses and securing admission to them rests with each MA student. Your seminar instructor and other faculty, as well as the academic-affairs deans, are happy to advise you in your search; but you must take primary responsibility.

You will have room in your schedule for one outside elective in the fall. You should begin searching as soon as you have a clear idea what you think you want to study. Read about outside courses and what is available in different schools and departments. In some cases, classes at other schools may begin before they do at the Journalism School, so be sure to check calendar information carefully.

Although we have publicized the MA program to Columbia University faculty members, the likelihood is that a professor you approach will have little idea of what it is. You must use the same skills to get into a course that you use to secure an interview with a difficult subject—be patient, explain what you want clearly, and be persistent. We have had great success so far, but our continued success in this area depends to a large degree on your own diplomatic skills. Detailed instructions for registering for outside courses may be found at the web address given above.

Your outside courses must, of course, fit your schedule of other courses.

Skills Courses

In addition, each student may take, in either the fall or spring term, one of the Journalism Skills 5-week mini-courses: Radio, Television, Television News Writing, New Media, Photojournalism or Computer-Assisted Reporting (CAR). These are usually counted as one-credit courses.

These courses all meet in the evening or on Saturday. Students may try to add an additional skills course during the add/drop period provided they do not exceed 19 credits during the term. However, this should be undertaken with extreme caution, as the total work load of your courses is greater than most students anticipate.

To enroll in a skills course, you must fill out a ballot. (This link takes you to a description of the courses.) The ballot link is also sent to you by Assistant Dean of Students Melanie Huff on Monday, July 7. Dean Huff must receive your ballot by 10 a.m., July 14. All ballots meeting the deadline will be treated equally. If your ballot is received after the deadline, you will be placed in classes on a space-available basis in the order in which late ballots are received. Skills classes will also be offered in the spring. Reminder: these courses are optional, not mandatory.

In a few weeks you will be sent a list of recommended readings for the summer—a few longer assignments you may prefer to read while leisure time is freer than it is apt to be during the school year.


Below is some general information about the school and its procedures.

Registering for Classes

You do not register yourself for classes; we do that for you. For the “skills” courses, we ask that you ballot for the course of your choice as described above.

To register for your outside elective (a graduate-level, subject-area course offered by another school or department), please follow the instructions given at the link above under “registration details.”

Adding or Dropping Classes

You may request to change one or more of your classes during the official add/drop period each semester. The add/drop period for Fall 2008 begins at 10 a.m. on Aug. 25 and ends at 10 a.m. on Sept. 12.

During this time, a link to the add/drop form will be available on the Dean of Students Blog. On each form, you may request to add one class and drop one class. All add-drop requests are processed on a first-come, first-served basis. We stress that they are only requests; there is no guarantee that we can accommodate them.

We do not send e-mails approving or rejecting requests for schedule changes. You must keep checking your class schedule on the web at Student Services Online. Sometimes it takes days for a space to open in a class. Sometimes the space never opens up. Until you see a change reflected on your class schedule there, your request has not been approved. All requests remain on file during the add/drop period.

Internships

Students often express interest in doing internships during their time here at the J-School. While this is not forbidden, it is highly discouraged during the fall semester and encouraged with extreme caution in the spring, because we feel strongly that your studies must come first. Our curriculum is intense and demanding, and we find that students often underestimate the amount of time that it will take them to complete their coursework.

That said, some students do manage to juggle internships and schoolwork successfully, particularly during the spring semester. If you are interested in an internship, you should let Career Services know early in the fall; they will help you to identify appropriate opportunities and hone your applications.

Please note that if you wish to receive credit for an internship – and many of the media companies that offer internships require this – your academic adviser must confirm to Career Services that you will be able to handle both internship and coursework. The amount of credit you can receive may be limited by the 19-credit limit (above that level you will face a significant increase in tuition cost). Read more on internships, and about Career Services.

Auditing Classes

Students often ask if it is possible to audit classes in which they are not formally enrolled. The answer is yes, as long as the instructor agrees. However, you should also keep in mind that most instructors expect student auditors to attend all classes, participate in all discussions, and do all coursework. In addition, university regulations prohibit the instructor from editing your work unless you’re formally enrolled in (i.e., paying for) the class. So before you approach an instructor for permission to audit, think carefully about your fall workload and whether you want to add to it, especially since you won’t have the benefit of formal feedback from the instructor.

Grades

The journalism school has a pass-fail system of grading, which we hope will encourage you to do your best here without making you feel as if you’re competing with your classmates. To give you a sense of your progress, you’ll receive a written evaluation from most of your instructors at the end of each term. Outside electives may be taken pass/fail with the permission of the instructor.

If at any point during the semester, an instructor feels you are not doing passing work, he or she will inform the Dean of Students Office, which will issue you a letter placing you on warning or, in more serious cases, on probation. The letter also will describe what you must do in order to be removed from disciplinary status. If you have not met the conditions of the probation letter by the end of the semester, you will not be permitted to register for the following semester’s classes or to graduate.

Copies of all evaluations, warnings and probation letters are kept on file in the Dean of Students Office.

Graduation Requirements

To graduate, you must successfully complete all required courses, and accumulate at least 36 credits. A student who fails any two courses, or the same course twice, will be dismissed. In addition, the faculty reserves the right to withhold a degree from any student deemed unworthy because of poor performance or unprofessional behavior.

Causes for Dismissal

Faking a story, making up quotes or plagiarizing constitutes grounds for instant dismissal.

E-Mail

When we received your enrollment deposit and you were logged into the university system, you were assigned a UNI (short for “university network identifier”), which consists of your initials plus an arbitrary number.
To activate your UNI, go to http://uni.columbia.edu/. If you don’t know what your UNI is, find out.

Once your UNI is active, you can log into your Columbia e-mail. (Your e-mail address is your UNI plus “@columbia.edu”; however, when entering your UNI into the system as a login, leave off the “@columbia.edu” and enter only the letter-number combination.)

All official communications from the J-School and the university will be sent to your Columbia e-mail address; if you wish them to go to another e-mail, you can set up your Columbia account to forward your messages electronically.

Tuition

Your tuition bills are issued by and paid directly to the university, not the journalism school. The university will send you an electronic statement at the beginning of each semester; you can also access it through the Student Services Online link on the university’s website. There is no need to worry if you have not received a tuition bill yet; the university tells us they won’t go out until Aug. 18, with payment coming due on Sept. 11. You can find information on payment options by logging on to your online account.

Technology

You may wish to use both a digital camera and a digital tape recorder while reporting print stories for class. We have this equipment on hand, so it is by no means mandatory for you to purchase your own; however, many students wish to do so. If you are considering this, please take a look at our technology guide for incoming students, where you’ll find suggestions for affordable equipment that interfaces smoothly with the rest of our technology. The guide also discusses computers and laptops, and includes information on vendors who have agreed to give discounts to our students.

An abbreviated version of the technology guide is online.

Dean of Students Blog

For one-stop access to information about all aspects of student life at the J-School, check out the Daily Plan-It, a blog published by the Students Affairs Office. On the blog, you’ll find special-event announcements; links to upcoming (and archived) chats and Webcasts; transcripts of talks by guest speakers; housing resources; financial-aid information; technology resources; and links to the official school calendars – to list just a small portion of the information you’ll find here. Get into the habit of checking the blog regularly; in particular, we recommend that you read the “Prepping for the J-School” section on the blog.

Academic Calendar

For quick reference, here is a link to the page through which you can access (and import) the J-School’s master calendar.

Social Life

The Society of Professional Journalists, our student organization, organizes a wide variety of social activities, from movie nights and the ever-popular Friday happy hours to the annual Halloween party and the end-of-term faculty roast. Elections for SPJ officers are held in September. The 2008-2009 SPJ adviser is Prof. Duy Linh Tu, who will be happy to talk to you about how to get involved. See the SPJ calendar.

Class of ’09 Facebook Page

Interested in getting to know some of your classmates before you arrive on campus? Join the Class of ’09 Facebook group.

Things to do Before Arriving on Campus