The insults couched as career advice (usually a variation on “no-one-likes-a-journalism-graduate-why-don’t-you-get-a-history-degree?”) are based on the assumption that we can’t possibly learn anything at J-school that we couldn’t’ get from another program or, better yet, the Hemingway pub-crawl school of life: Just Do It! One of the latest of these affronts came buried in Joey Slinger’s Toronto Star column last February. Slinger offered a $1,000 prize to any journalism student who could find a happy hobo-by-choice, explaining that J-school students need this incentive since “they don’t study anything that is any use to them.” A fine arts major might say, “My esteemed colleague, I beg to differ.” We say, “Do too, Joey!” Since many of our professors also freelance in the business and gainfully employed journalists routinely come to our classes as guest lecturers, I’ve often wondered if J-school bashers are insulting their colleagues for sharing their knowledge or students for wanting it. An English major might say, “I confess, it gives me pause.” We say, “Hi! Hello?”

Journalism school isn’t a contradiction of the Just Do It philosophy. We don’t sit around reading classics and saying, “Spectacular cadence! Would but that I could produce such a transitional phrase!” Putting out the Review is more of a learning experience than any wannabe-journalist in politics or history could ever hope for. In fact, many of those wannabes end up at Ryerson, degrees in hand, expressly for that purpose. Funny how they’re having more luck getting jobs once they graduate from here than they did before. A philosophy major might say, “After the fact, but not necessarily because of the fact.” We say, “Whatever.”

So, as always, we bring you the culmination of years of what John Fraser calls “a compendium of all the teaching tricks dished out ot journalism students.” When you find something that interest, angers or impresses you, rest assured, it had nothing to do with what we learned in journalism school.