As I near the end of my college career (I will end up one credit short of officially graduating this semester, but that's another story), I'm coming to some realizations. In no particular order:

While doing a preliminary search for jobs earlier this month, I discovered there are (or were at the time) six reporting jobs listed in all of Michigan across the three boards I checked.
The job situation in public relations is not necessarily much better.
Nearly all of these jobs require two to four years experience in journalism, PR or a related field. This brings its own set of questions. Does experience on the college paper count? What about internship sites?
It's becoming clear that if I want to do anything with this degree, I may have to make my own job and make myself indispensable to an audience that can't get enough. In my view, that should be the goal of any journalist/writer. The challenge is figuring out what you can write about in order to appeal to an audience that is loyal, but also one that is not so niche that it doesn't attract ad dollars. (Yikes.) It's challenging, but with the slow death of mass media, I may have to give it a shot.
This really has nothing to do with anything else, but given the title of this post, why not? The Tigers just traded Prince Fielder for Ian Kinsler. I'm really distracted suddenly.
If you're going to freelance, make sure you read the contract. Some of them include provisions that you can resell a story if it's outside a certain radius of a paper the publisher owns. Odds are it won't happen very often, but you never know when something you write might have appeal in more than one market.

Long story short, I think I have a lot I will be finding out over the next few months. I'm ready for adventure.

writergraham.com