College Media Matters

Kay Nguyen is overworked, undervalued, and entering the throes of uber-sleep-deprivation.  The Oakland University commuter student always enjoyed a routine family life and a rigid early-to-bed-early-to-rise schedule . . . until she received a laptop and a news media itch.  Cue headlines, ledes, and late, late nights.

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As she asks in an amusing new Huffington Post College piece, “Why did my sleeping habits change when nothing else changed, though? Like everything else: I blame it on journalism.”

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The principal target of Nguyen’s journalistic blame game: her current position as editor in chief of The Oakland Post.  In her words, “Guess when I began harboring the compulsive need to always stay connected and on top of current events?”

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The journalism industry’s woes and their impact on her post-grad plans also keep her up nights.  ”I do unpaid internships,” she writes, “freak out about the prospect of not getting a job, work on my portfolio, worry about the job market, try to get my website up and running . . . try to get good grades in case I have to go to grad school and bug out a little more while scouring the internet for more unpaid Internships that will hopefully land me a job in the future.”

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In the end, Nguyen’s overwrought, insomniac account is most fascinating for what it omits: any explanation about why college journalism circa 2010 is worth staying up for and stressed out over.

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So to all the j-student extraordinaires out there, what’s your answer?  Why are you wide awake and relaxingly optimistic about the journalism of your youth???