”The SAJ is the place where you learn all about journalism in a very short time”

BBC, CNN, Reuters, Al Jazeera, The Guardian, Infotag, Europa Liberă, Ziarul de Gardă are just some of the websites that I read every morning when I get to the office. It is a custom and a task that I adopted from the very first days at the School of Advanced Journalism and have kept to these days.

Other professional skills necessary to a media person are also valid today: monitoring local and international news, top news of the day, covering events and facts, etc. The School gives you the foundation for a correct vision and work. The above moments are followed by more specific ones, but also important, such as observance of journalistic ethics and deontology, the rule of sources, correct writing of news stories and journalistic materials, and meeting the deadline.

I chose to study at the School of Advanced Journalism deliberately and with great emotions. I took it not as a challenge, but as my “second diploma studies” to gather knowledge about the media. I work in a media NGO, and it was difficult for me to spend three more years on another university degree. In this sense, the SAJ is the place where you learn all about journalism in a very short time.

I remember that on the first day at the School, Mr. Vasile Botnaru said: “There are many of you, but few will get to do journalism after the School.” His experienced eye wasn’t wrong. Few of our graduate class are still in the media. It is the paradox of the SAJ: the School offers you the necessary information and opportunities, but the skills and desire to continue this work come from the student.

I don’t want to come with ideas of whether it was easy or hard. I would be a hypocrite to claim it wasn’t difficult to deal with your own agenda and combine it with the agenda of the School. Also, after my first article and first practical exercise I understood whether I wanted to do journalism or not. The School of Advanced Journalism justifies its name – you learn the profession from real journalists, and it is a school of life, too.

Today, I work as a program coordinator at a radio, and confidence in myself and in my knowledge have changed. My vision and the way I appreciate people, facts, and information have changed. I feel more mature and much more confident in the knowledge I got from the School of Advanced Journalism.