<p>I would hardly call undergraduate journalism at Northwestern “vocational.” </p>
<p>About 3/4 of the classes Medill students take are outside of journalism, which makes it easy to double major in political science, economics, etc. A journalism degree from Northwestern won’t pigeon-hole anyone. It provides students with the broad base of knowledge necessary to be a good journalist.</p>
<p>Also, obviously news is changing, and newspapers are dying. But I think it’s a little bit far-fetched to argue that there will soon be no need for journalism. People still need and want reliable news, and some idiot with a blog is hardly going to take over the media’s role as a “watchdog.”</p>
<p>That said, I still think Stanford is a great option, even if you want to be a journalist. I just don’t think it’s fair to completely discount a j-school as highly-regarded and well-respected as Northwestern’s.</p>