The Columbia School of Journalism … A Reputation for Excellence
There are many fine Journalism Schools scattered at colleges and universities throughout the United States. One of the very best, if not the absolute best, may be the school located uptown in Manhattan in the neighborhood known as Morningside Heights.
That is where you’ll find students attending classes in the Columbia School of Journalism’s Graduate Program, a course of study that has produced many of today’s best-known print, television and online journalists.
Columbia University’s Journalism School is nearing its 100th birthday which makes it one of the oldest Journalism Schools in America. The university itself was founded before the American Revolution, way back in 1754 when it was known as “King’s College” in honor of the reigning British monarch at that time, King George.
When the school opened its doors to undergraduate students way back then, there were already four colleges operating “in the colonies,” because, as I mentioned earlier, the American Revolution had not yet taken place … there were no American citizens, only British subjects.
No matter. The school began operations and, over time – lots of it – became known as one of the country’s and the world’s top institutions of higher learning. In fact, today in the modern era, it is a “member of the prestigious Ivy League” and has a well-deserved reputation for excellence.
That reputation exists for all of its course studies, including Journalism. Interestingly, there was no School of Journalism for much of the university’s long history. The idea for a Journalism School was put forth by the nationally-known publisher, Joseph Pulitzer in the late 19th Century. As a prominent newspaper publisher at the time, Pulitzer hoped that a Journalism School could – and would – crank out a steady supply of qualified journalists for his newspaper.
It took several years for Pulitzer’s idea to take root. The truth is that the Columbia School of Journalism opened its doors for the very first time in September, 1912. When it did so, the first class had a student body of about 100 students in total, many of whom came from as many as twenty-one foreign countries. Additionally, the students were a mix, some part of the university’s undergraduate program while others were already part of the graduate program.
The school was popular from the outset and, over time, its student body – and its reputation – grew exponentially. In 1935, the school became the very first Graduate School of Journalism in the United States even though graduate students had been taking courses for more than twenty years.
Today, the Columbia School of Journalism remains one of the finest institutions of learning for budding journalists in the United States and throughout the rest of the world. Its student body is comprised on “the best and the brightest from America” and from dozens of other countries, as well.
The school’s faculty is superior and, in many cases, nationally-known. And the Graduate students who are there to study and learn are a serious group … intent on being the next generation of famous TV, print and online journalists. Many of them are certain to succeed.