Petey

Hello all,

I'm currently attending Stony Brook University. I was originally majoring in Journalism but I decided that the news reporting field was a little bland for me so I'm no longer majoring in it. What I ideally want as my future career is to be a radio talk show host (specifically sports). Unfortunately, SBU does not offer a communications department. Upon speaking with an advisor, he informed me that the key is getting internships, not so much what you major in. He says that as long as I have internship history, and I have a BA, I'll be fine. The reason he says the actual major isn't important is because having a BA will show that you're intelligent already, and that having the experience with the internships will be the key. He suggested that I could major in something that really interests me like history. I am a major history buff so that fits the bill. I'm posting here to see if what he said is actually true. There aren't a lot of (affordable) schools near me (Long Island, NY) that offer communications as a major. If I majored in history and was able to get an internship or two, would I still be in a good position for my dream career, or is a communications major necessary in what I want to do, and was the advisor just trying to persuade me to not leave SBU.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

2bizee

Rachel Maddow, of CNBC has a bachelors degree in public policy from Stanford and a DPhil in politics from Oxford University. Her cohort, Keith Olberman- who started in Sports broadcasting, has a degree in communications from Cornell.

So, I guess you could go either way.

liek0806

Your advisor is correct.

Being a talk show radio host is as difficult if not more difficult than entering hollywood to become a paid actor. There are very very few available positions, compared to the amount of people who want those positions. your degree really doesn't matter for those type of positions. a lot of you landing one of those positions is work experience/internships, and personality. remember a talk show radio host HAS to have personality more than anything. How else will you draw in listeners? Aside from that I'd recommend you have a back up plan because radio talk shows are becoming extinct.

zapfino

Charlie Rose majored in history at Duke.

October47

Actually, I've recently been looking up radio jobs and found quite a few. I have to warn you, depending on where you live a lot of broadcasting jobs are out of state.

Don't forget that even if it's the experience that counts you're going to need experience to get that experience. I've personally never tried to get a radio internship before, but it seems to me they would rather take the person that's had a little radio experience than the person with no experience. It might just depend on if stations are willing to train you or not.

Something that's great for broadcasting students is student radio. You definitely need to see if you can volunteer at your school's radio station. If your school doesn't have one see if a school nearby does.

Make sure that you learn the rules of broadcasting, and especially know all about the FCC rules and regulations.