Parting shots

Moving on

We knew life went on after Poynter, but a lot of us weren't sure how.

We learned a lot of great things from college and internships, and the fellowship probably provided us with one of the best journalism educations you can get.

But our schooling left out some important stuff, such as how to evaluate a job and how to keep learning about journalism while you're working so hard. Poynter does journalism the way it should be done. That's not the way it's actually done in a lot of newsrooms.

The first job is hard. People treated fellow grads poorly, took advantage of them and asked them to be unethical. When you're new, a lot of people won't care what you think. Some of us had to move to the middle of nowhere. You'll probably have to do tons of grunt work.

The first job is an opportunity and some fellows are having a blast. Plus, things supposedly get better as you move up.

If you have any suggestions for this guide or want your contact info available for other fellows, e-mail Peter Zuckerman at pzuckerman@gmail.com or Dave McCreery at mccreer4@egr.msu.edu.