Melanie Stone Melanie Stone Everyone is hating on journalism, and I’m tired of it.

Two years ago, I shipped off to college, wide-eyed and ready to write. I had plans: I would master the feature lede. I would abhor the Oxford comma. I would graduate with my journalism degree and run off to The Chicago Tribune where surely, surely I’d be hired to be the next page-two columnist.

And then David Carr called many college journalism programs “escalators to nowhere” in a column for The New York Times.

Ouch.

Carr is not the only naysayer. I’ve encountered far too many pessimists who laugh when I discuss my classes and dreams, then look at me with condescension: “Melanie, how foolish of you. Why don’t you study something useful, like supply chain management?”

Here are three arguments I’ve heard against a journalism education, and why I think they're nonsense.

“Good luck finding a job after you graduate.”

Actually, entry-level journalism jobs are on the rise. CNN Money has the good news: In 2009, 56% of journalism graduates were finding full-time jobs, according to a study from the University of Georgia. In 2011, it was 62%. And most recently, that number was 66%.

We can thank the digital age for that uptick.

It's true that traditional journalism jobs at newspapers and magazines are disappearing, and they’re often out of reach for college students and graduates, anyway. But as the role of a beat reporter continues to become a novelty, a different form of journalism is rising from its ashes, bringing jobs to young people: social media reporters, digital editors, bloggers, and community managers.

A quick search on JournalismJobs.com revealed opportunities for college graduates with a bachelor’s degree across the country. In New York City, CBS Interactive is looking for an associate editor. In Chicago, a media and tech startup called Aggrego is seeking community news managers. In San Francisco, Rundown needs city editors for its daily email newsletter.

Jobs are out there. So don't worry about me: I’ll have a job, and I will kick some serious butt doing it.

“You’ll never make money.”

CareerCast.com dubbed “newspaper reporter” as the worst job of 2013, describing it as “a job that has lost its luster dramatically over the past five years is expected to plummet even further by 2020.” A few months later, Buzzfeed’s list of the 22 lowest paying jobs that require a degree ranked “reporter or correspondent” as No. 3, citing a median salary of $36,000.

That’s a low number, especially when compared to other jobs. For financial advisors, Indeed.com reported an average salary of $79,000. For mechanical engineers, the number soars to $82,000.

But there's more to a career in journalism than dollars and cents. Journalists see their work as a responsibility, a megaphone to the public, and they follow through with their commitment to inform — often, regardless of pay.

Slate writer Will Oremus responded to CareerCast’s study in a blog post, claiming that its “methodology takes into account income, outlook, stress, and danger but ignores intangibles like autonomy, excitement, or fulfillment.”

And in any case, things are improving for the media industry. In PayScale's most recent wage index, media and publishing jobs experienced the biggest wage growth over the past 12 months, according to Business Insider. That category grew 3.9%, compared with 2.3% wage growth among people working in information technology.

If we could measure the intangibles, journalism would be the best job of 2013. I think Oremus would agree.

“Silly Melanie. Journalism is dead!”

Woah, woah, woah. Let’s hold on for one hot second. Journalism will never die.

At its roots, journalism is about telling stories and passing them on to others. Think of ancient Egyptians and their hieroglyphics — welcome to print reporting circa 3200 BCE.

Of course, storytelling has changed since then. Now, we have social media reporters who sit in front of six computer screens, tweeting the news. And as soon as a story breaks, there’s a live blog up and running. Journalism is associated with immediacy. The people want the news, and they want it now.

In a recent blog post about the future of journalism, Arianna Huffington said we are "in something of a golden age of journalism for news consumers."

I couldn’t agree more, and I would also venture to say it’s the golden age for journalism students.

At DePaul University, one of my classes is about online journalism, taught by an instructor who understands how the field has changed. Twice a week, we study SEO, coding languages, web reporting skills and emerging social media tools. It is a crash course in digital media, and I am fascinated by each topic.

The class reminds me that journalism isn’t dead, nor is it dying. For those of us who have chosen this major, we’re headed into an industry that is alive and kicking.

So, fellow journalism students, get ready. I’ll see you in the real world.

Melanie Stone is a journalism student at DePaul University in Chicago.