Welcome to our new series, J-School Confidential, filed by media experts in the making. Our rotating cast of emerging journos will take on that great media debate — to j-school or not to j-school — while chronicling their tales of learning the craft both in the academic settling and on the ground.

In this week’s edition, new Columbia grad student Beth Braverman assesses her place among her fellow students, revels in the camaraderie, and worries she’ll become the “bridge-and-tunnel student who never goes out.” And then there’s the whole getting a job thing, too.

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“Wow, I’m old.”

As I arrived on campus last Tuesday for the first official day of classes, this was the first thought running through my head.

In order to get to the Graduate School of Journalism, I had to navigate a campus swarming with incoming undergrads. As I mentally went over the readings for my first Evidence and Inference class, I caught snippets of conversations revolving around dorm life and meal plans. But even as the undergraduate students outside of the journalism building appeared young and immature, my peers inside seemed confident and experienced.

All of the 40-some students in Columbia’s M.A. program bring some real-world journalism experience, and my paltry five years as a local newspaper reporter and trade magazine editor seem to pale in comparison. My peers have broken major national stories, served as foreign correspondents in Lebanon and Iraq, and written for publications from The New York Times to the St. Petersburg Times.

We’re all on a level playing field going forward until, of course, job-hunting season begins — which is apparently now.

But despite the disparity among the resumes of incoming students, so far I have found my classmates utterly engaging and friendly. I’m sure that as the semester wears on, the inevitable cliques and alliances will form, but for now, everyone seems ready to make friends.

Already a few people stick out as quick to comment in class discussions, but I think others will join in once they get more comfortable with the group and with the classes.

There seems to exist a shared understanding that we’ve all gotten ourselves into this extremely intense training program, and we have to get along in order to help each other through it. Also, despite everyone’s background, no one really knows what to expect in the coming year, so we’re all on a level playing field going forward until, of course, job-hunting season begins — which is apparently now.

The dean told us during the first day of orientation to make an appointment and meet with career services as soon as possible. My own experience as a working journalist has shown me that publications generally do not advertise positions or start interviewing nine months in advance, but I definitely do not desire to be among the latecomers to the office. So I uploaded my resume — which can use some tweaking anyway — and requested an appointment.

One thing I have not done since arriving on campus is second-guess my decision to enroll. The curriculum promises to put strains on my time and skills, but it poses an appealing challenge that I look forward to meeting.

The syllabi for my classes appear in line with their online descriptions. They’re heavy on academic reading, but they bypass rudimentary journalism skills like how to write a lede or a nut graph.

One curriculum-related disappointment is that business concentration students do not get to pick their electives. Instead, our professors “highly recommend” that we take accounting this semester and corporate finance next semester. While I appreciate the reasoning for the mandate (and can certainly use the education in business basics), I would have enjoyed taking an elective more closely aligned with my personal interests.

Almost all of our professors are published authors and many of their works appear on required reading lists for their classes. I look forward to reading these texts in addition to bumping up our professors’ Amazon.com ratings.

Our professors have wasted no time getting started: We’ve already begun work on a group project for Evidence and Inference, and my business seminar professors expect us to have potential theses topics ready by the end of next week.

The commute from my new apartment in Astoria to Columbia has proven to take no less than an hour, regardless of what combination of buses and subways I take. This resulted in my tardiness for two classes in the first week of school, which mortified me but escaped the notice of anyone else.

The benefit of the commute starts and ends with a guaranteed two hours to catch up on classroom reading. To meet up with classmates for quick drinks on Friday took four hours from start to finish, and made me never want to do it again. I fear I may become that “old, married bridge-and-tunnel student who never goes out.”

So my goal for this semester is to better schedule my social outings to coincide with classes and maybe find a way to lure some unsuspecting classmates into the outer boroughs. Oh yeah…and to become a business journalist.

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Beth Braverman is a freelance writer and graduate student at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. She lives in Astoria, N.Y.

The heyday of the Internet seemed to turn traditional notions of copyright on their proverbial heads. The Web proved to be a powerful new publishing medium, and anyone who knew a scrap of HTML went wild posting things online. Gradually, copyright owners — whether writers, music publishers, or others — awoke to the fact that there was no meaningful difference between the Internet and other publishing media — and, therefore, that they should be paid for the use of their material online. Copyright owners started to stand up for their rights, and sites like the old Napster started getting shut down. Today, the pendulum continues to swing between both extremes: On one side, you have the freeze, where large, institutional copyright holders use sophisticated bots to hunt down Web sites using their works, then send notices to take the material down, sometimes even though the material is being used legitimately. On the other hand, there’s the continuing free-for-all, where everyone from large institutions to small businesses or individuals keeps using material without properly compensating copyright holders.

One byproduct of these developments is that the average person has become much savvier about copyright than they were five or 10 years ago. “Most people don’t think anymore that if you find something on the Internet that you’re free to copy it and put it on your Web site,” says Jessica Litman, author of Digital Copyright and professor of copyright and Internet law at The University of Michigan Law School. Another result, though, is the increasing need for writers and other content creators to be aware of copyright law, both to protect their own rights and help prevent them from inadvertently infringing on others’ rights.

To help meet that need, we’ve gathered tips to help ensure you’re aware of what’s legit and what isn’t when it comes to copyright. Today’s feature focuses on what you should know about copyright when you’re a content creator (Got a blog? Have a Web site that publishes user comments? Then we’re talking to you!). Check back tomorrow for our copyright feature focused on protecting work of your own. *

Know what is copyrightable
Simply put: A copyright grants commercial rights to the owner of an “original work of authorship” that appears in a “fixed form.” This includes everything from pieces of writing and songs to plays, images, and movies — even to architecture and software. The purpose of the copyright is to grant the owner the sole right to profit financially from all uses of the work. Someone wants to publish your article in their publication? They have to get your permission and, if you want, pay you. Someone wants to make a movie version of your book? Same thing. Someone wants to perform your play, song, or book? If you own the copyright and want them to pay, they’ll need to cough up the cash.

Common exceptions to the copyright rule include government documents and works that are considered “common property,” such as a height and weight chart. Another exception is a work whose copyright has expired and is therefore considered “in the public domain” and free for all to use. (Witness the round of movies based on Jane Austen books which have cropped up over the past decade.)

Plagiarism isn’t a copyright infringement, but it could hurt just the same
Copyright involves using someone else’s work and attributing it to them, but without the necessary permissions (and, possibly, payments). Plagiarism involves using someone else’s work and pretending it’s your own. It’s a subtle distinction, but it makes all the difference in the courts. A copyright infringement is a prosecutable offense, and financial damages can be recouped. Plagiarism is simply an ethical offense, and thus cannot be hashed out in the courts. But, don’t think that a plagiarizer won’t suffer penalties. Post someone’s article to your Web site without realizing you needed to get permission? They’ll either ask you take it down, or, worst case, bill you for a license. A pain, but not a career killer. Plagiarize by using someone else’s words, trying to pass them off as your own, and getting busted? See if you get any gigs after that.

A common misperception about fair use is that size matters. But size actually doesn’t matter. More important is the intent behind the usage.

When it comes to fair use, size doesn’t matter
“Fair use” is an exception to the copyright rule enabling people to use portions of works for the purposes of reporting on them, commenting on them, and parodying them, as well as for research and education, without needing to get permission to do so. The classic example is a televised movie review. If a TV station wants to broadcast an entire movie, they have to get a license. But if they just want to use a few clips in a review in order to cover the movie, they don’t need any special permission. Because of examples like this, though, a common misperception about fair use is that size matters. That is, that you don’t need a license if you simply use a small portion of a work. But size actually doesn’t matter in this case. More important is the intent behind the usage: Are you using the snippet because you want to report on, comment on, or make fun of the larger work? Or are you simply folding someone else’s creativity into your own, and thereby potentially enhancing the commercial value of your own work? Anthony Elia, a New York publishing attorney and co-author of Author Law A to Z, recalls a case in which an author included song lyrics in the chapter headings of his book — just a few lines here and there. The music publisher objected and threatened to bill the author a separate license for each copy of the book published. The author quickly removed the lyrics.

What’s tricky about “fair use” is that the law doesn’t contain hard and fast rules about what is and is not allowed. Instead, it simply lists a series of factors a judge would consider in evaluating whether the contested use of a piece of a work was fair or not. The Copyright Web site (a resource about copyright and an online copyright registration service) offers a nifty Fair Use Visualizer to help you evaluate whether your use of an item is likely to be considered “fair” or not. Use it as a starting point, but consult a lawyer if you want to be certain.

Publish clips on your Web site appropriately
Over the past decade, freelance writers have discovered that the Internet offers a great way to showcase their work: Set up a Web site, where you describe your areas of expertise, post scanned copies of your clips, and maybe even include thumbnail images of the covers of publications where your work appeared to reinforce your qualifications. You now have an easy way to show potential clients your work. Simple, right? Not quite.

By definition, your Web site is a promotional tool, which means everything on it is being used for commercial purposes (rather than journalistic ones). This means you don’t necessarily have the right to use all the elements that were included in the original article. You own the words you wrote (assuming you didn’t give up rights to them in your contract with the publication), so you can include those. But the photographs, charticles, and other “original works” that were part of the final article? Rights to those belong either to the people who created them or the publication. And unless those folks have given you rights to use them to promote yourself, you’re not legally entitled to put them on your Web site.

Kind of throws a wrench in the whole using-the-Internet-to-display-your-work thing. Here are a few workarounds:

Establish ownership of comments made on your blog
Technically, comments made by visitors to your blog belong to them. They are their “original” works in their “fixed” form. But you might reasonably want to use those comments in some derivative work somewhere down the line, like in an anthology. Follow the lead of sites like WashingtonPost.com, Technorati.com, and Craigslist.org, and post terms and conditions on your Web site that establish your right to use any comments posted as you see fit.

Get permission
If you want to use someone else’s work in your own, and you’re not positive you have claim to fair use, get permission. It’s a potentially long process, so start early. Copyright owners are not always easy to locate. Even once you find them, negotiations might take a while, since there are no set rules on how much it should cost to re-use a particular work in a specific circumstance. To find an owner, start with the database at the U.S. Copyright Office. It’s free if you do it yourself, but if you want to save time, you can pay the Library of Congress (where the Copyright Office sits) to do it for you. For other ideas on ways to locate a copyright holder, take a look at the online cheat sheet provided by Lloyd J. Jassin, a New York publishing attorney and co-author of The Copyright Permission and Libel Handbook.

*Since we’re talking law, we must make clear: This article does not constitute legal advice, but provides tips to get you started. Take the time to educate yourself in depth. If you have concerns stemming from anything you’re working on, consult a lawyer.

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E.B. Boyd is a freelance writer based in San Francisco.

Part I of this feature covered copyright concerns when it comes to using others’ work. Today, we’ve got copyrights tips to help you protect work of your own. We know we covered this part yesterday, but it’s worth repeating: Know what is copyrightable. Simply put: A copyright grants commercial rights to the owner of an “original work of authorship” that appears in a “fixed form.” This includes everything from pieces of writing and songs to plays, images, and movies — even to architecture and software. The purpose of the copyright is to grant the owner the sole right to profit financially from all uses of the work. Now, on to the essentials of guarding your copyright.*

Ideas aren’t copyrightable
Let’s say you have a great idea for an article that you share with a friend — maybe you even put it into an email to him. Then, he uses the idea to sell the very same story to a national publication, netting himself a fancy byline and a juicy fee for his trouble — not to mention making it impossible for you to sell the same idea to another publication. Copyright violation? Nope. Your original idea doesn’t constitute a “work of authorship” in a “fixed” form. Even writing it down in that email doesn’t prohibit anyone else from using the idea. The three sentences in your email are copyrightable, since they’re “original” and “fixed.” But that doesn’t give you the rights to the work your friend created, based on your idea. That’s his “original” work in his “fixed” form. Unfortunately, there’s nothing you can do to recoup damages from him, other than cross him off your list of friends and warn other writer colleagues about his nasty habits.

Know what rights you are selling
Freelance writing contracts used to be pretty simple. You could grant First North American Serial Rights, which gave a publication first shot at running your story in its print edition. After that, you retained all subsequent rights. Or you did Work Made For Hire, in which case the publication owned your work wholesale, and you could do nothing further with it. The advent of digital media has led to myriad new ways to distribute content, most notably through Web sites and digital collections like those found on CDs. At first, some publications acted as if their purchase of your story for their print edition gave them the right to also make it available online and in other places, such as a digital archive. Eventually, the courts affirmed that that was not the case, most notably in the landmark 2001 Supreme Court decision in Tasini et al v. The New York Times et al, a case initiated by the National Writers Union. The decision established that writers own the rights to electronic versions of their work. Publications responded by rewriting their contracts. Many now request rights to any possible use they can imagine down the line, such as perpetual inclusion on their Web sites, inclusion in an anthology, or inclusion in a movie. “Whenever possible, writers should insist on keeping everything they can,” says Jessica Litman, professor of copyright and Internet law at The University of Michigan Law School. Depending on how much leverage you have, consider pushing back and granting the minimum number of rights.

Register your work
The requirements around registration are another source of confusion for writers. On the one hand, you don’t need to register your work to own the copyright to it: According to the law, you own the copyright at the moment of creation. On the other hand, registering your work is a prerequisite to bringing legal action against an infringer. The timing of your registration is equally important. How soon you register your work will impact how much you can recoup. Register within three months of publication or before an infringement (whichever is later), and you’re entitled to statutory damages and lawyers’ fees, in addition to any money the infringer earned through the use of your work. Register after three months or after the infringement (also whichever is later), and, even if you find an infringer, you can recoup their financial gain, but nothing else.

It might sound like a hassle to register each article you produce, but you can save time and money by bundling a group of articles and submitting them in a single batch, all for the $45 fee the Copyright Office charges per filing. Make a practice of doing this at least once every three months. “For $180 [a year], it’s a lot of protection,” says Anthony Elia, a New York publishing attorney and co-author of Author Law A to Z. “It makes the difference between being able to proceed in court and the case not being economically viable in many cases.”

Instructions on how to register your copyright can be found on the U.S. Copyright Office Web site. Erik Sherman, a freelance writer and former chair of the Contracts Committee of the American Society of Journalists and Authors, also has a handy cheat sheet on copyright registration on his WriterBiz blog.

“You have to be aggressive, and you have to be willing to go the distance [to protect your work].”

Find online infringers and deal with them
If you want to ensure others aren’t using your stories without your permission, perform a periodic Internet search for your byline. You’ll be surprised where your pieces might turn up. Several years ago, freelance writer Mary Beth Klatt discovered that a restaurant Web site was featuring an article she had written for the Chicago Tribune about a chain of local taverns. She sent them an invoice, and after she showed them proof of her copyright registration, the Web site paid. But it wasn’t easy, and the outlet balked at first. “You have to be aggressive, and you have to be willing to go the distance,” Klatt says.

Billing infringers isn’t your only option, though. If you aren’t getting very far with the owners of the Web site itself, you can also contact the Web site’s ISP and make a “DMCA takedown” request. The procedure is named for the 1998 Digital Millenium Copyright Act, which amended federal copyright law and struck a compromise with ISPs, who were concerned about being held liable for the activities of the entities using their services. The law says ISPs won’t be held liable for copyright infringements made by Web sites they host as long as they remove the material upon being notified of an infringement. So if a Web site is ignoring you, the ISP will likely respond swiftly. You can view an example of a takedown notice, and the Copyright Office maintains (sometimes referred to as DMCA agents) to whom you can send a takedown notice.

You can also choose to be friendly about the infringement. If a blogger has reprinted your article for the purpose of furthering discussion around it, for example, consider simply asking them to link to your article instead of reprinting the whole thing. “It’s worth distinguishing between someone who’s adding commentary around the piece, and people who are taking the content and throwing ads around it, hoping to make money around the work,” says Wendy Seltzer, a fellow at the Harvard-based Berkman Center for Internet & Society.

Consider using a Creative Commons License
Traditional copyright licenses were fairly restrictive. Either you gave someone a license to profit commercially from your work, or you gave them nothing. Tech innovators saw the limitations in these rules. There was no easy way to give someone partial rights. Enter the Creative Commons. Founded in 2001, this nonprofit organization created in a new set of licenses that allows the owners of creative works to provide limited permissions that allow others to use their work without making special requests. For example, a “Noncommercial” license automatically gives others the right to re-use your work as much as they like as long as they aren’t making any money off it. A “No Derivative Works” license gives people the right to use your work as long as they don’t modify it. You can mix and match to accord others exactly the rights you’re willing to give up. For more, see the Creative Commons Web site.

To learn more about copyright issues addressed here, check out What Works Are Protected? and What Is Not Protected by Copyright? on the U.S. Government Copyright Office’s Web site. (And don’t worry, it’s written in plain English.)

*Since we’re talking law, we must make clear: This article does not constitute legal advice, but provides tips to get you started. Take the time to educate yourself in depth. If you have concerns stemming from anything you’re working on, consult a lawyer.

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E.B. Boyd is a freelance writer based in San Francisco.

My first reporting job was for the Village Voice in the mid- to late-nineties back when it was owned, quietly, by the Hartz Mountain Group (after Rupert Murdoch, before Arizona). By then it had already been a few decades since that paper had seen its heights, but I’d held faith. The idea of the Voice, even at that late date, was that it still stood up for the hidden parts of the city, for all those sidelined subcultures no one else covered, and as one of the new I was blessed with a mad jumble of beats — video game writers, arm-wrestling tourneys, the Internet. The stories had nothing to do with each other except for the fact no one else wanted them. I saw that newsrooms were much like plots of divided land: prime, bountiful tracts staked by the first regime; parched, lime-stoned fields seeded by the callow new. And so I tended my fringe soil.

After a few years I had lucked into a few leads on a story about how Asian gangsters were running gambling and prostitution parlors in Manhattan and Jersey, prize information. The Voice‘s main mob reporter then, Bill Bastone (who later went on to found The Smoking Gun), encouraged me to go after the story. He even graciously offered a few sources. He was part of that Voice tradition where fellow reporters helped one another whenever asked.

Slowly, I gathered. I interviewed. I mined the background. Eventually, I cut a small story into the paper, a concession; I hadn’t nailed down that sweeping, epic feature I had first imagined. (Don’t we always imagine that first?)

How To Accidentally Transition Into Film: Write About It

Around the same time, I had separately been working on a story about independent filmmakers, one of those knowing, think-pieces typical of the Voice then. My lead subject was Michael Kang, writer and director of Sundance film The Motel. During the interview he happened to ask what else I was writing, and I mentioned the Asian gangster story. He then suggested the obvious thing brewing between all the spaces in our conversation.

There was hemming and hawing, the usual deflections — from me. But then I could see in the reams of research that I had gathered — all of which touched but never completely confirmed certain New Gotham truths — the outlines of a movie, that necessary narrative waiting to get out. So I said yes, and I learned to drum in Final Draft. After a while Mike and I had 110 pages of scene and dialogue, and we made the rounds. Money was found. Production happened. The film, called West 32nd, premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival this year, and I was lit with pride. Through it all I learned to speak in “blue page” and “white page,” in “pre-pro” and “post” — the filmmaker’s cant that marks the mouths of insiders (even if it turns out to be for just the one time).

The Great American Novel, It Ain’t

But there is a frustrating certainty to screenwriting: A screenplay isn’t really a writer’s form. There is suspense in structure, yes. There is realism in dialogue, yes. But not much else. The writer writes for the director, the producers, even the actors before he writes for himself. All of the players need clarity first, and while that is certainly a reporter’s rifle, unlike a news story, a script’s brutal efficiency doesn’t allow for any literary pause. There’s no room to order language into careful or commanding prose, into that unique rhythm and hiccup of words that define what a writer does.

Don’t think so? Think of your three favorite movies not written by the director. Do you know who wrote them? Let’s try another: Which is your favorite Martin Scorsese picture? Who wrote it?

The director chooses which notes to perform, and a good director can turn a meager script into a masterpiece; the reverse is also true.

This has nothing to do with any faulty justice on the part of Hollywood, though that machine definitively deserves final fault for many, many crimes of trade. The reason for that gap in cinema memory is that screenwriters are not responsible for what anyone ultimately likes (or dislikes) about a film. I’m not trying to pass the buck, as, indeed, frightfully inept writers fill the ranks, and poor scripts are plenty, enough to glut the Hollywood air.

But as with any craft, it’s all about execution — and a script is the opposite. It is a proposition, a string of intentions, of word and action, of story and character, even of stunts and special effects. The director chooses which notes to perform, and a good director can turn a meager script into a masterpiece; the reverse is also true.

So what then, the writer’s role?

Details, Details, Details

Journalists hold an edge here. Details. Hollywood, and by that metonym I refer to all filmmakers (studio or independent), is starved for detail — it’s the one thing studios are forced to pay for and what the writer owns. My pile of reporter’s notepads served the script in succinct measures.

First, like any well-devised feature article, a script needs a nut, that sleek widget that explains the need for the story at all, and one of the more interesting facts to this clan of mobsters was that they operated completely differently from the Italian mafia (a well-trod path on screen) — they were either more extreme or exactly reversed in their perceptions and procedures to the Italianate brand. And it was this variance that propelled our script’s sense of urgency. From there we crafted character, my interviews providing some dialogue verbatim.

All that was left was plot, and one of the biggest challenges to screenwriting is plot mechanics. Why does B happen after A, or how can I get B to happen after A? Knowing, for instance, how law enforcement actually works, or being aware of the dynamics of a particular cipher (such as an illicit subculture) can tighten those strings of causality.

And yet, more detail was sought on set. Perhaps my enduring worth during the filming of West 32nd was defined by the fact that I was one of the few who had seen this Asian Mafioso act up close, and I was nervously pecked by actors looking for specific ticks; by the costume designer who wanted to know what these characters wear; by the location scout who wanted the actual addresses of the places I had reported from; by the director who wanted to recreate the look of a seemingly simple room and the action of a minor character (“___standing on the table naked, she bent over and drank a mug of beer stuck to the table…”).

The Conventioneers

But while weaving details into a script can create the ring of truth, kowtowing to convention can also further the feeling of familiarity — anything that strays from the standard will not translate. In other words, don’t do the Quentin Tarantino thing — unless you know you’re going to direct it. Is it any surprise that all those post-modern films that cloyingly maintain the beats of literature are written and directed by the same person? Charlie Kaufman, the inevitable asterisk, has nonetheless preserved his writer hallmark not by over-conceptualizing his stories as many might think, but by putting himself in them.

By contrast, one of the today’s most successful screenwriters, Spielberg workhorse David Koepp (Jurassic Park, Spider-Man, upcoming Indiana Jones 4), is not a known quantity outside the machine. That you may never have heard his name might have to do with the fact that he’s very good at his job — his writing is tight, invisible.

Indeed, journalists hardened by that noble newsroom regulation, Economy of Words, might think that screenwriting is not so different after all. Even David Foster Wallace would have to bare his nape in grudging veneration at the Temple of Word Thrift, but that’s not the case. A screenplay is a more stripped down device, and I don’t think any journalist or writer would hold faith in a church that makes writing so modular, that corners writing into such a consensus trade as the movie business demands.

It requires that you subsume your writing to the story, to the forever formula.

The Method

The books on screen-craft are legion and while they have all promised that hokey sense of fulfillment that comes with a polished product, they have also promised the following: You will have written no more than 110 pages and no fewer than 90; you will have written a plot turn on page 27; you will not have written a single scene that goes beyond four pages, ideally two or three; you will not have written dialogue that could otherwise be explained by SCENE ACTION (instead of saying “Yes,” he nods); and the list of dictums goes on. Taken in sum they form this curious mathematical tedium:

HIT MOVIE FUNCTION = SUM [Scene Pages 1-2 (nemesis + action)] + [Scene Pages 3-4 (main character + problem (as-defined-by-nemesis))] + … + [Scene (main character + love interest + flirting/promise-of-consummation)] + … + [Scene Page 27 (main character (setback/friend killed/etc.))] + … + [Scene Page 60 (main character + love interest + conflict/remorse)] + … + [Scene Pages 90-94 (main character + nemesis + showdown/denouement)] + … + [END Scene Pages 95-99 (main character + love interest + resolution/catharsis)]

Don’t laugh, as it actually works. It is exactly this kind of creaky, workaday craftsmanship that defines today’s brand of filmmaking, and as the above formula illustrates, a screenplay in the end is nothing more than a neurotic hem-haw, a ream waiting for cut-up, and if you want your script taken seriously, it, and you, must accord.

In total: Formula, then detail, no aims at literature.

Perhaps the cynical timbre of my recount betrays a certain perverted sense of gratitude on my part, but, in truth, I would not diminish my time in moviedom for anything. I am, in fact, hoping for more, because after it all, screenwriting does fulfill. It is a shared fulfillment. There is some definite magic to seeing your words resolved in the mouths of actors who can somehow make it sound so much better than you once imagined or even intended. And as the movie pushes along and the director finds clever new ways to edit the reel into ever-tighter structures, and the music and special effects are added, and that impossible alloy of remoteness and intimacy forms around every frame, you begin to see something much larger than whatever was first on the page. You see a movie.

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Edmund Lee is at work on his first novel. He awaits impending distribution of West 32nd so all his friends who missed it at festival can stop pestering him. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife and daughter.

In the latest installment of J-School Confidential, third-semester NYU grad student John MacDonald reflects upon what’s he’s learned and how it will help his future. The results surprise him.

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The impulse is to approach j-school, or any graduate experience, with all our bases covered, all the right forms signed and sealed. We don’t go to grad school because we’re supposed to; we go because we want to. So we throw all we have into clearing the proper path to professionalism. But things are never that easy. Get your shit together, sure. But realize that good stuff happens when you aren’t looking.

Sometimes the good stuff has nothing to do with school or journalism. Distractions can be just as “productive” in the long run as any five hours spent on the beat. When I dumped Philadelphia for NYU last summer, I left behind a two-and-a-half year relationship with a good band. Within in a month, I had a new one in New York. Now I had rehearsals in exotic Astoria and new friends who didn’t know grad school from pre-school — and all because I showed up at a friend’s show at CBGB’s. The next day, the second guitarist quit. My buddy offered me the slot and that was that. I had no intention of playing music last year. I was a graduate student with books to read and student loans to pay. But while writing remains foremost on my mind, my band has given it the weekly rest it deserves. A noisy guitar is the best stress reducer I’ve found. Distractions are a good thing, especially ones that fall into your lap.

I hesitate to call my internship with The New Yorker a fluke. But that’s really what it is — yet another example of the happy accidents that have marked an otherwise unexceptional j-school experience. It was this simple: I grabbed coffee with a recent NYU grad — an editor for Domino working in the Cond_? Nast Building (the same that houses The New Yorker). I happened to mention my interest in music writing. Without any prompting, my friend sent an email to The New Yorker‘s pop music critic and a sometime acquaintance of hers, asking if he needed any help. And bam! I’m in the door at 4 Times Square. No applying to Cond_? Nast’s excessively bureaucratic internship program. No fear I’ll get placed at Golf Digest or Modern Bride. I had snuck in through the back door.

The New Yorker is, of course, a lesson in networking: that tiresome habit of socializing about which I felt utter ambivalence only a year ago.

Interning at The New Yorker has felt like a complete coup on the one hand, and completely commonplace on the other. Since starting this summer, I haven’t done anything life changing — just research, some fact-checking, and the occasional trip to the public library. Then again, I’ve gotten to work extensively with one of my favorite writers — an experience I’d gladly exchange for any four-hour photocopying session.

The New Yorker is, of course, a lesson in networking: that tiresome habit of socializing about which I felt utter ambivalence only a year ago. I haven’t exactly been born again, but I have come to see networking’s uncanny power. I’m not an idiot.

But the real lesson here — and one I would’ve been grateful to know last fall — is that success isn’t always dependent on productivity and preparation. That’s the silver lining in all those brutal hours you’ve put in on your grad school application, your two-hour interviews, and your 2,000-word features. Sometimes, all it takes is a cup of coffee, and suddenly you’ve got a newyorker.com email address.

Of course, a New Yorker email account doesn’t mean a New Yorker staff position. In a few months, I will leave 4 Times Square having worked hard, met fascinating people, and made priceless contacts, but not, I suspect, with a job. And here’s the real issue. No one’s dropping $15,000 a semester just for an internship and a couple bylines. The idea is to land a career, become fiscally sound, make ends meet, bring home the bacon, all while engaging in a profession notorious for its meager job opportunities, its low salaries, its empty cupboards and empty bottles — its lack.

But unlike the importance of healthy distraction and casual networking, the tenuous connection between j-school and post-graduate employment has never been a mystery. I knew it when I applied to NYU and I know it now. Nothing in my first two semesters — a time I wouldn’t trade for any six-figure salary — has dissuaded me. Clearly, there are better and worse choices to make. Some professors work hard to get you published, some less so. Some organizations make staffers out of their interns, some don’t. You should figure out the difference. But you’ll gain nothing by fretting too hard about graduation on your first day of orientation. Immerse yourself in the material, work frighteningly hard, and if no publication is waiting for you at the end of the line, start your own magazine. That’s what I’m doing.

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John MacDonald is a graduate student in the Cultural Reporting and Criticism program at New York University. He lives in Brooklyn. He can be reached at jmacdonald324 AT gmail DOT com.

In the latest installment of J-School Confidential, new Columbia student Katia Bachko reflects upon her first month at school, her new beat, and her newfound respect for the simplest stories.

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I am sitting in a room with more than 200 people and crying. Everyone is crying.

No, these are not uninformed j-school students who’ve just heard the news about the imminent demise of newspapers. My classmates and I are listening to excerpts from StoryCorps in a presentation by David Isay, a former radio journalist and documentary-maker and the founder of the project. Isay is at Columbia to deliver what can only be described as the world’s saddest motivational speech. His advice: Listen. It falls on ready ears. We emerge into the August night with tear-streaked cheeks, and, at this moment, I am aglow with certainty: I belong nowhere else.

Since school started on August 16, the first lesson I learned is that experience and accomplishment aren’t the same thing. Before Columbia, my classmates were soldiers in Iraq, investment bankers, amateur opera singers, published poets, book authors, UN officials, and rock stars. I’m constantly thinking or saying, “Wait, you did what? Wow!”

Two truths have emerged quickly: 1. I love being at school. When I take in the bona fide collegiate scene, I feel a heady rush and my mind floods with clich_?s: the possibilities are endless; the world is my oyster, and so forth. 2. I need to be at school. On the beat and at the keyboard, I feel challenged, pushed beyond what I know and what is comfortable.

For one thing, I’m not used to doing my own reporting. As an assigning editor, my job was to have a good idea and then find someone else to execute it. Now I have to do both, and I’m finding that the execution part is much harder than it seems. It’s often said that people who master a craft can make the difficult seem effortless. I’m learning that what may read as a simple story can represent hours and hours of legwork before the writing begins.

Nervous at the beginning, I was secretly hoping for a little hand-holding.

In the past, when I set out to critically read the newspaper it meant evaluating bias. Now, I marvel at the most straightforward hard-news articles. They are a wonder of time management and resourcefulness: How did the reporter know with whom to talk? How did she find such articulate sources? I am humbled by these details, filled with respect for the writers who accomplish these daily feats with grace.

The concept of news judgment has also hit me like a ton of bricks. In undergrad, when professors talked about it, the discussion always veered to the “Dog Bites Man” versus “Man Bites Dog” example. News was unusual or significant or important. At the magazine where I last worked, it was easy to find the relevant in a sea of information. I had to answer two questions: Does this pertain to our niche readership? Have we covered this recently? If I could answer no to both, I usually had a story.

But when writing for a general audience, the world at times seems vast. The people on my beat — I’m covering Greenpoint, Brooklyn — are warm and willing to share their stories. I’m still not 100 percent certain how to take what they give me and turn it into a compelling article. I pride myself on being observant and fill my notebook with small details, but I haven’t found a use for them yet. I am training myself to think critically about the local conflicts on my beat, but I still have to learn how to turn a sharp insight into something larger.

Above all else, I’ve realized that j-school requires major self-motivation. Nervous at the beginning, I was secretly hoping for a little hand-holding. I wanted some supervised activities during which I’d be coached on how to approach strangers on the street, conduct a proper interview, ask good questions, and then synthesize all of this into a super story. In truth, we had a few lectures and discussions about the basics of reporting before our first assignment, but it all seemed like too much too soon.

On the street, I felt abandoned and unprepared. Wasn’t j-school supposed to teach me how to do this instead of throwing me to the wolves? Sick with anxiety, I walked around looking for a person to interview and everyone looked wrong. “That guy is walking pretty fast, he must be in a hurry… Oh no, this woman’s bag looks sort of heavy, she probably doesn’t want to stop and talk.”

It was sunny and warm out but I was walking around with a cloud over me. Just then, I turned a corner and I heard a friendly voice say, “Nice day out!” And so it began.

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Katia Bachko is a writer and editor in New York City. Contact her at katiabachko.com

In this edition of J-School confidential, our Columbia MA student attempts cope with the ever-growing pile of printouts beside her bed. As she sinks further under a mountain of paper, she wonders whether she should stop reading and start writing.

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I am overwhelmed with paper.

Three weeks into my MA program and I’m already seriously at risk of becoming one of those little old ladies who meets her demise trapped under the mountains of printed material she lets accumulate in her apartment, only to be found weeks later, her eyeballs eaten away by her hungry, neglected cat.

The MA is a decidedly more academic program than Columbia’s MS (note to everyone who wants to know who teaches me RW1, the famed beat reporting class familiar to all MS grads: I do not take RW1). That means while the MS kids are out reporting on the mean streets, filing stories about churches in Astoria and used bookstores in the Bronx, we MA students are reading 100-plus pages on the failure of Germans to properly process the emotional costs of Allied destruction, dense psychological studies on making faulty assumptions, and lengthy critical round-ups of the role of art in society.

All of these readings provided to us as PDFs, which then turn into reams and reams of printed-paper, littering my backpack, my dresser, and my bedroom floor. Then there’s the Times, which I always think I’ll get around to finishing, and thus let collect under my desk, not to mention the various magazines I pick up every time I’m out so I can familiarize myself with their content and the books — the books! Powells.com sent me a used, low-cost tower of literature just this weekend.

And if you think I’m having trouble storing all of this written content? You should see me try to read it. I’ve always been a fast reader, and assumed the same speed with which I could tear through The Poisonwood Bible and David Sedaris essays would translate to Daniel Liebskind’s treatise on memorial architecture and the Holocaust. It doesn’t — and as a result, I have faced several long nights and early mornings trying to cram it all in.

I’m a mouthy broad, and would rather participate in class than stare aimlessly out the window.

Sometime around the beginning of week two, I began to wonder if maybe I didn’t need to read all of my assignments. The program is pass/fail, there were no written follow-ups, and there’s so much assigned that we almost never got around to discussing it all during class.

I put my theory to work for a few days, and discovered I was right — I didn’t have to read it all. In fact, I could probably get away with not reading anything. But I’m a mouthy broad, and would rather participate in class than stare aimlessly out the window ___ especially when class lasts two to three hours. Even when I could fake it, making general points or bring up news discussions without directly referencing the reading, I felt like I was missing out. The literature my classmates were discussing — though difficult and obtuse on first pass — sounded fascinating; something I would benefit from knowing if I want to speak knowledgeably about culture and society.

Besides, if I want to compete with this class of all-stars, I need to keep up. The level of talent in my program is staggering — award winners, world travelers, phenomenal writers. The goal now is to make enough of an impression, in class and out, such that they might remember me one day and offer me a job at whatever high-powered magazine they take over a few weeks post-graduation.

Straddling the line between diligent academic and charming, ever-present networker has been another challenge. Part of the value of J-school is meeting and mingling with future peers, taking advantage of the world-class staff, and doing non-school work for people that can help me publish in reputable magazines. So do I stay in and catch up on reading, or do I sneak out for a drink with my classmates, with whom I can bounce pitches off of and glean contacts?

That’s why I found myself blowing off an assignment last week, when I should have been reading about the primitive media channels in eighteenth century France. The reading was due the next day — but after a talk with one of my professors, I realized a think-piece I had been longing to write might find an audience in one of several well-regarded magazines. Instead of hitting the books, I cracked a bottle of wine and started writing, finally putting to paper some of the ideas that had been circulating in my head for months. It was thrilling to finally get it out, and to realize that I finally had the connections and ability to see this work from idea to print.

But by the end of the night, I still couldn’t get that nagging sense of duty out of my head. I diligently printed out my history reading, read through as much as I could, and added it to the teetering stack by my bed.

Thank goodness I don’t have a cat.

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Kate Dailey is an MA student at Columbia University.

Our “introverted,” “soft-spoken,” small-town j-schooler explains how she conquered the intimidation of meeting new people, attended multiple industry events, and even scored a free trip to Hollywood, all in the name of advancing her fledgling career.

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Two months into my freshman year at Ohio University I found myself on a plane to Hollywood, preparing to mingle with some of New Media’s top pioneers at the annual Online News Association conference. I checked my homemade business cards over and over, wondering if my experience editing my high school yearbook was enough to impress. I hadn’t joined The Post, the school newspaper, or any other publication yet, and the most well-known media figures I had met were Stan Boney, the local weatherman, and Seth Doane, a former ChannelOne anchor. I felt that this, combined with my small stature and soft-spoken nature, made my apprehension well warranted.

The truth: The main reason I approached the Online Journalism Student Society’s booth at the Communication school’s involvement fair was because they were offering a trip to Hollywood, a much more lucrative offer than any of the other organizations present. Without a second thought I called my parents up and said, “I’m going to Hollywood.” I didn’t realize that by taking this first foray into the world of professional journalism so early in my college career, I would learn an essential j-school life lesson: It’s all about who you know.

While this reality had been explained to me before, my internal justice system felt it was wrong. If it’s all about who you know, why bother putting any effort into your work? In Hollywood I learned that while you can know all the big-shots in the business, you need talent and a work ethic, too. If an acquaintance goes out on a limb to recommend you and you fail, you’ll make yourself and your benefactor look like a fool. Chances are they won’t back you again.

So how does one become “good” at meeting and mingling? Well, while I’m no Laurel Touby, I have picked up a few tips in the past three years. And if an introverted girl from a town with a population of approximately 1,500 whose only claim to fame is that it is 30 minutes from the ninth most dangerous city in the U.S. — Youngstown, Ohio — can learn how to use connections around the country to her advantage, then you have a pretty good shot.

Being so unsure of myself, I ended up fumbling through my first day at ONA conference, until the late afternoon when I found myself in a conversation with a professor from a university in Texas. Halfway through the discussion I realized I sounded smart and knowledgeable. True, we were discussing university-related subjects, but it was a step. The thing about conferences and other large gatherings is that for some people it takes practice. You can’t be afraid of sounding like a fool every once in a while.

For the second day I made a goal for myself of approaching and starting conversations with at least five professionals. I jotted down some notes and wrote a few questions that I was comfortable asking. I took ideas from my journalism classes, issues raised during panels, and my knowledge of current media affairs. By the end of the conference I had collected over 50 business cards.

Did that guy in one of your classes have your dream internship? Send him a Facebook message asking if he could let you know how he scored it.

During the conference take notes of who interests you — maybe they worked for a company you want to intern for, maybe they had great connections themselves — and shoot them a quick email. It only takes about a minute to say you enjoyed the conversation and hope they had a good trip home. Considering our generation’s competency with email and social networking, there’s no reason we shouldn’t excel in this area.

The second chunk of sources is the people closest to you. J-school professors are a great because most of them have had a wealth of experience in the field. This also includes current and former bosses and even fellow students and alumni. Did that guy in one of your classes have your dream internship? Send him a Facebook message asking if he could let you know how he scored it, or if he wouldn’t mind getting a cup of coffee. Most people are happy to share their experiences and pass along their contacts.

I’m not ashamed to say that every single job and internship I’ve had since I came OU has been secured because of someone I know — a fellow student, a school trustee, an alumnus, a former supervisor and someone I met at ONA — I’ve relied on all of them to pass along my resume or make a call.

Of course, once they make the call, it’s up to you to impress.

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Meghan Louttit is a journalism student at Ohio University and is a former intern at American Express Publishing and mediabistro.com.

Most people who’ve ever watched television think they can write for it. Most people who’ve never watched television think they can write for it. The guy who just sold me my television thinks he has a screenplay. From their overstuffed couches, viewers assume that being able to predict the next line of dialogue before it’s spoken entitles them to be in the My Name is Earl writers’ room, when what it actually signals is just how hard the task really is — so hard that experienced writers often fail. “A lot of people think TV is a thing you do from your home in your spare time,” says Jane Espenson, a writer on Battlestar Galactica. “It seems like a career you can get into if you’ve already got a job. But it’s not.”

How can you get in? According to my research, there are four ways, no ways, and also an infinite number of ever-changing ways to get work writing for television, and being a good writer is only half the battle. Maybe less. Getting a job writing for television can be harder than dating, and just as serendipitous. So whenever I meet someone who’s been successful in TV-writing, I get them to tell me how. While there is no equivalent to JDate for hungry writers, stories I’ve heard of how people got their start run the gamut from infuriating to inspiring.

It’s who you know
John Schulian’s story is both. At an age when some men divorce their wives and buy Corvettes, Schulian divorced his wife and started watching TV. “I had never been a big television watcher, ever in my life,” he says. “But for some reason, I watched the pilot of Hill Street Blues and it just absolutely killed me how good it was. The characters were brilliant. The writing was smashing. I was floored and I became a faithful watcher of the show. Hill Street showed me that writing for television could be an honorable profession.” In 1984, Rupert Murdoch took control of the Chicago Sun Times and Schulian took that as the perfect opportunity to leave. He quit his job there as a sports writer, and moved to Pennsylvania. In February of ’85, he contacted a former coworker who had stayed in touch with another former coworker, a photographer who now worked for the LA Times and was married to TV writer Jeff Melvoin. “I called Jeff out of the blue, and he didn’t know me from a sack of potatoes. He could not have been nicer or more supportive — and we talked for about 45 minutes. This was the first of many acts of incredible generosity, charity, and big-heartedness that I would encounter over the next few years.”

Schulian showed up in L.A. in April and called Jeff, whose response was, “All right, at 11 a.m. you’ve got a meeting with the vice president of MTM Productions.” Melvoin had also scheduled him with the head of development at Geffen Film, and for dinner together in Santa Monica, even though Melvoin and Schulian had never even met. “The one thing [Melvoin] said that stuck in my mind was that everybody gets into the business a different way,” says Schulian. “There is no one way to Hollywood.” To which Schulian replied, “Well, I really like Hill Street Blues. What if I wrote a letter to Steven Bochco? Dear Mr. Bochco, I’d sure like to do what you do!” He included a copy of his book and an article he had written for GQ. Within two weeks he received Bochco’s reply, which said, “A lot of journalists think they can do this and a lot of journalists can’t.” Less than a year later, Schulian was writing episode 8 of L.A. Law. “I had not read a script in my life. I had certainly never written a script,” says Schulian. “I was just completely flying blind. Nobody ever fell off a truckload of turkeys the way I did.” Other folks Bochco took a chance on? Deadwood writer David Milch and David E. Kelley of Ally McBeal and Boston Legal fame. Schulian turned in his rewrite in August of ’86, and that September he joined the writing staff of Miami Vice. “I guess it’s fair to say that things were moving at warp speed,” he says. He would go on to co-create Xena: Warrior Princess.

But can such lucky breaks happen in today’s TV industry? Schulian wonders the same thing. “I think the business has changed so much,” he says. “You like to think that these sort of impossible stories can happen, but I don’t know. First of all, it’s not even the people who run the shows that do the hiring. You’ve got to be signed off by the studio, and the network, which is just completely wrong. This is a frustrating and unhappy time, in terms of hiring and putting together the kind of staff that you would want.”

It wasn’t just extraordinary acts of kindness and raw talent that gave Schulian his second life, it was also timing, lottery-winning-lucky-timing. “As I would figure out later, I had caught Bochco at absolutely the perfect time in his career. He had left Hill Street Blues — and he had time in a way that he never would have had time when he was in the midst of production — I can’t thank Steven Bochco enough. Ever.”

At Jane Espenson’s first pitch meeting, she sold a story — increasing her income that year by almost 50 percent. She was hooked.

TV advice from the blogosphere

So who can you come to thank in these frustrating and unhappy future times? One possibility is Jane Espenson. While she hasn’t created a Hill Street Blues yet, she did write a spec M.A.S.H. when she was 12. She’s among the few professional TV writers out there with a strong sense of responsibility towards her fellow wordsmiths. She dispenses smart, free, spec writing advice on her blog. Joss Whedon, the mind behind Buffy The Vampire Slayer, reads her blog. John Hodgman, the “PC Guy” and Daily Show correspondent, wrote about her blog on his blog. As Espenson says, the genesis of her blog was, “I’ll talk about the only thing I know, which is how to write a good spec.” She had no idea it was going to fill such a huge gap for would-be TV writers. “I assumed lots of people were doing it, and other people are — Doris Egan [of House] has a great blog, and [Emmy-winning writer/director/producer/major league baseball announcer] Ken Levine has a blog, but I guess nobody does it with as much focus as I do,” says Espenson. “I don’t talk about anything else. Lunch and screenwriting tricks specifically designed for television, and even more specifically designed for writing a spec that will get you hired. I make it sound doable, I make it sound accessible — because I think it is. The numbers are low, but people get in [to the TV industry] every year.”

Be a good fellow

As Espenson tells it, the ABC Disney Fellowship program is her Steven Bochco in shining armor. Living on $12,000 a year as a graduate student at UC Berkeley, Espenson’s way of procrastinating on her linguistics dissertation was cranking out three Star Trek: The Next Generation specs. Based on spec No. 2, Espenson got the call to come in, and at her first pitch meeting sold a story — increasing her income that year by almost 50 percent. She was hooked.

Through routine trips to L.A. to pitch Star Trek with Ron Moore, who remains a colleague of hers, she found out about the fellowship. “To get into Disney, you needed a half-hour script. Disney was out of the drama business entirely because it felt dramas were ‘not profitable’ and ‘never would be again because they can’t syndicate. Dramas are done! Everything’s comedy!’ So I wrote a Seinfeld [episode] and sent it in [to Disney for fellowship consideration]. Espenson’s script was accepted, she spent two years in the program where she landed jobs on Dinosaurs and Monty.

Espenson attributes part of the program’s success to the fact that shows are given incentives to hire fellows. “You aren’t taking that big a chance as a show runner if you employ a Disney fellow because, like I was, they’re paid by the fellowship. You don’t have to tap into your writing budget; you get another body in the room working for you absolutely free. At a time when budgets are so small, it’s not just a luxury. You might really need that to fill out your staff. So it’s probably becoming a better and better way to get in. You need a certain amount of experience in your room. You do want young writers, but you hire from the top down. By the time you’re hiring your staff writer, you’ve got no money.” According to Writer’s Guild of America West president Patric Verrone, “The industry works to hire people who are the cheapest. The triangle of good, bad and cheap — pick any two. The natural course of business is to find writers who they can pay the least to, who can deliver the fastest. At some point in their career, the good point in that triangle takes over and you get people who are actually in demand because of the quality of their work.”

Have a portfolio to pull from

Most writers would do well to have at least a couple brilliant specs and maybe even a scintillating pilot in your script stable to get you hired. “Spec writing is so much different than what you actually wind up doing,” Espenson says. “Spec writing is a solitary activity, but TV writing isn’t. TV writing is a committee. You’re in a room with other writers a lot of the time, you’re social, you’re interacting. Breaking stories, on both comedies and dramas is done in the room. It’s very collaborative. So you have to be able to work with others, you have to compromise with all these other people, and you have to be flexible. That actually hurts a lot of young writers because they come in and they think to make their mark, they have to make an impact and it’s like, no, actually you can be pretty quiet your first year as a writer. Write a good draft and you’re doing fine. This notion that you have to come in and somehow transform the show, fix the show, that’s totally wrong.”

While being a good writer is a huge part of being a working writer, Espenson says, “not being crazy is the hugest part. There’s that meeting that you get when the show runner has read your material, has talked to your agent, they know what your background is, they know that you’ll fit into their staff, and they call you in for a meeting anyway. That meeting is to make sure you’re wearing pants. So make sure that your eyes are focused and you’re not just spittin’ nails crazy. If you are a hermit in a cabin in the woods, work on some social skills.”

“I have not met anyone yet who has also been inspired to start blogging or increasing their outreach. They read their writer’s assistant’s scripts. They give them an assignment. They let them rewrite something. They let a P.A. sit in on the room late at night. That’s how most people do their outreach and a lot of people do that really well. Show runners do that.”

Take what you can get

It’s not all just a matter of standing behind a Bochco in the valet line, the money you sink into school can pay off, too. Verrone rode the other express train to Hollywood, as an editor at the Harvard Lampoon. “I think that when I came up in this business, there were still some variety shows that you could write for that paid less than the sitcom or drama world and that’s how new writers got their start. Then, it turned into new writers had to work as writers’ assistants and that’s how they got their start as the sitcom and drama world expanded across a lot of additional new networks,” he says. “Now, new writers are given the opportunity to work in cable programming, in direct to the Internet webisodes, and other Internet content, and I think that is opening up a lot of opportunities that both new writers can take advantage of, and existing writers — my goal is just to make sure everybody gets paid for it.”

Andrea Wachner is a Los Angeles-based TV writer.

I got married and started graduate school within one incredibly hectic week in September.

Six weeks later, now that I’m settled into both the role of wife and graduate student, I’ve learned that the latter has had far more implications on my daily life (and my relationship with my husband) than the former.

I naively imagined my schedule in graduate school would resemble my schedule as an undergrad — replete with sleeping in and an abundance of free time. My class schedule seemed to confirm this — I have no classes before 2:30 p.m., and I spend a grand total of about 16 hours per week actually in a classroom.

As my husband puts on his suit, I remain in my pajamas and boot up the computer and the coffeepot before brushing my teeth.

But I find myself far busier as a graduate student than when I worked at a full-time job. Instead of eating dinner together at least four times a week as we did before graduate school began, my husband and I look forward to Tuesdays as the one weeknight we during which we can share a meal.

My alarm usually goes off somewhere between 6 a.m. and 7 a.m., (In my previous job, I woke up at about 7:15.) As my husband puts on his suit, I enjoy my impermanent reprieve from corporate dress codes. I remain in my pajamas and boot up the computer and the coffeepot before brushing my teeth.

I start the day reading The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times business pages online. In addition to preparing me for class, these daily readings provide proof that my Business and Economics Reporting curriculum is working, as I understand more of these stories every week.

I work on class readings or other assignments for the next few hours, before taking a mid-morning break to visit the gym. A graduate student’s schedule is incredibly conducive to working out. I hit the gym almost every day, but instead of sweating next to 20-something professionals like me, I find myself surrounded by buff housewives (making me feel completely unfit) and aging retirees (making me feel very svelte).

I return to home and consume my lunch back at the computer, just like I did when I worked. Depending on when classes start, I usually spend the first half of the afternoon working on the various freelance projects that allow me to continue paying the bills while I am in graduate school.

By mid-afternoon, I am on a bus headed to campus, working on more class readings. Most afternoons involve meetings with classmates on various group projects and then two to four hours in lectures such as Evidence & Inference or History of Journalism for Journalists.

My hardest class is actually not a journalism class at all. It is an accounting class taken by all the business and economics concentration students this semester. I already see the benefits to me as a reporter in taking this class, but I haven’t taken a math class (or used a calculator for more than figuring out a tip) in at least eight years. We take the class at the School of International and Public Affairs alongside aspiring accountants and international business professionals with far more experience understanding balance sheets than we have.

It also doesn’t help that the class takes place from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. on Monday nights, and I frequently find myself thinking more about what I’m missing on primetime television than what I’m learning in class. Luckily most of my j-school classmates seem to be having equal difficulty with the accounting. We have begun looking into hiring a tutor to help us get a better handle on the class.

Classes go late on Mondays and Wednesdays, and I usually don’t return to the apartment until close to 10 p.m. While I relished night classes as an undergraduate, I’m afraid I’ve outgrown my nocturnal instincts, and I tend to spend the latter portion of these classes staring at the clock and thinking about all the things I need to get done at home.

When I do get back to the apartment, I say a brief hello to my husband and lock myself in our office to spend another hour or two on homework before going to sleep.

Thursdays, my classmates in the Business and Economics Reporting seminar usually grab dinner and happy hour drinks after class. The drinking and venting bring me back to my days as a daily newspaper reporter, and comfort me that everyone else seems as busy and overwhelmed as I am. One classmate quit her part-time job since starting the program and another reports that he regularly stays up till 4 a.m. finishing assignments.

Fridays I have only an accounting recitation, and I usually spend the rest of the day (as well as Saturday and Sunday) working on a Business and Economics reporting assignment due every Monday at 8 a.m. and an accounting assignment due Monday evening.

I do my best to make it out to a social event on Saturday nights, where I usually spend half the evening explaining to my friends who are not in graduate school why I never come out anymore.

I reassure both them and myself with a reminder that the M.A. program is nine months long, and since midterms start next week, I’m a quarter of the way through.

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Beth Braverman is a freelance writer and graduate student at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. She lives in Astoria, N.Y.