Hello everyone, my name is Logan Plaster and I am excited to be blogging for the NYU Publishing Alumni Association. This is a great resource that was put together by Karina, Joanne, Ania and Karen, and I'm proud to take part. Let's make this a space for NYU Pub. students, both past and present, to network and share ideas. If you have comments or links to share, please don't hesitate to email me. More to come on that front later . . .
Anyway, on to business. The NYU Publishing Alumni Association had a successful meet-up this week at the Croton Reservoir Tavern, a posh little bar near Bryant Park. It was a record turn-out, said alumni association founder Karina Mikhli, and everyone stayed until the bartender kicked us out. OK, so we were meeting in a room that closed at 8, but still, a good time was had by all.
The first round-robin questions for the evening was posed by yours truly, a third-semester, part-time student in the MS Publishing program. I am going through something of a mid-degree crisis and I needed a little inspiration. “What was your favorite class at NYU?” I asked. “Or, more to the point, was there a class that made the monetary investment worthwhile?”
The mention of the word “investment” was met by a wave of knowing nods. Unless you have someone else paying your tuition, you know what I’m talking about. We try to not think about the actual dollar amount attached to our degree, or subject it to too rigorous a cost-benefit analysis. That said, everyone around the table was quick to provide me with a stellar class to take, something that changed the course of their degree in one way or another.
The biggest consensus was that the most worthwhile classes in the end were the ones that were the most difficult and dreaded at the time. Namely, anything involving finance. “I hated finance,” said Ania, “but it was the class I used the most.”
Tony agreed, adding that finance is particularly important because, “no one is going to teach you that on the job.”
On the flip side, there were nods all around when Amanda recalled how her editorial classes were “a wash,” since she already had editorial experience.
My take away? Stay away from classes that seem right up my alley; they’ll end up being boring and redundant. Focus on the classes that will stretch you and give you a specific marketable skill, like building a P&L or creating a marketing plan.
So where are the classes on XML? Maybe next year.
-Logan Plaster
Check back tomorrow for the 2nd round-robin question: "What are the strongest and weakest segments of the publishing community?"
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