Planning my career AND school?

I am in a unique life position. 

Whereas most people take serious worry over their careers once they have graduated and have an established reputation, I am starting to wonder what I should do now, before I've graduated, before my name is well-known. 

For the 2007-2008 academic year, I was a reporter and Web Design Editor for the Collegiate, the college newspaper serving Grand Rapids Community College. I won an award for my reporting from the Michigan Press Association. My work on CollegiateLive.com won first place awards from the MPA and the Michigan Community College Press Association. 

During the summer, I sent out my resumes to a few media professionals. One group bit, interviewed me, and now I am completing an internship at the still-unnamed Media Group. (Blog manners say it is polite not to mention your present company. You can still figure it out.)

With one chapter in my life about to close, I'm trying to figure out what the next one will be about. I may talk to the people at the Lanthorn, the college newspaper serving Grand Valley State University, and seeing if they need any help in any capacity. (Having some background in photography, writing, web and limited graphic design, I am sure there's something I could do.) 

Another option to explore, I feel, may come up during one of my winter classes. Among the classes I am slated to take is Broadcast News I, which the college describes as:

News writing for radio and television. Projects include writing and producing newscasts and interviews.

Production, in the TV sense of the term, is not something I have had really any experience with. That would be another nice tool to add to my skill set. Might I even work with the Grand Valley TV station?

Why not just kick back and enjoy a couple semesters of just school? Well, journalism jobs are not terribly abundant. Some jobs that exist are there because media companies fire the old fogies who don't want to adapt to new media, so they hire one new spunky kid to do 2-3 people's job. The appearance of jobs does not mean that everyone gets jobs. There are more graduates than available jobs. And I've been "scoping out" some competition, and the issue is not that I'm qualified - I definitely am, to toot my own horn - it is that other people are as qualified, if not more so. 

To prove that I can be a worthy performer is more than just saying "I can" in a job interview. Everyone will say that to get a job. The interviewer doesn't know your true capacity. They are trying to. But people give lip service in interviews. To prove that you can do what you say you do, you need examples. Portfolio pieces. And current ones at that. I won't be able to use a piece that I wrote in May, 2008 for a job interview in Nov., 2019. That's five years old. It's dated. Old. Stale. (Not to mention media companies have no money, and will be having even less in the years ahead, so whoever they hire has to be worth it.)

By having an "easy semester," with only fifteen credits and my part-time job, I could be open to a gap in my resume and not many skills gained. Is it unfair? Maybe. College offers a lot of theoretics and analyzing, which is terrific, but there is often more talking than doing. And journalism is an industry about doing. 

Hopefully, at the very least, the broadcasting class will allow an opportunity to do. And maybe I should start thinking about another internship in the summer.