When I was studying print journalism in college twenty years ago, I remember we had a guest speaker come to my class one day. It was a newspaper editor and the first thing he did was encourage us to pursue work in another field. I resented the shit out of this guy. "This is so totally fucked," I thought to myself. I'm paying for an education and this guy is telling me the situation is hopeless. What a dick!"

I wish I had listened to that guy. Throughout the 90s, I had a career as a crime reporter, court reporter, stringer, wire writer, weekly columnist and even a radio news producer - none of these jobs had any benefits and the pay was shit.

My father, who had an awesome career as a newspaper photographer, was my idol. He encouraged me to tough it out - "there's always a job for someone who is willing to work hard," he used to tell me.

But times had changed. Volunteering to do all the jobs that no one else wanted to do - the obits and the beat calls for example - didn't earn me any brownie points. Hell, I would have been willing to scrub newsroom toilets or take out the trash if I had been asked.

Then I freelanced for a bunch of magazines and newspapers, thrilled to earn a whopping $50 for a feature story or $25 for a photo. But I also had to beg and plead just to get an assignment.

You can't do journalism if it never leaves your laptop. You need some kind of delivery mechanism, and I agree, we're all paralyzed as to what.

That said, Cary's overall message teeters terrifyingly close to Grayson Carter's suggestion to "get on a big story with widespread public appeal, devote your best resources to it, say a quiet prayer, and swing for the fences." You know, like the Boston Globe did with that whole church abuse deal. Wait....

To say anything more than Cary; that was the most "wow" piece I've read in sooooo long.... wow dude. Good work! And TY.

This is the final time I read this terrible blog. I don't think I've ever seen one sensible, sincere answer since I joined Salon.

I also graduated with what I thought was a completely worthless degree (specializing in a language I could barely speak). My career has nothing to do with what I did in college...for which I am grateful. How awful to spend the majority of my life pigeonholed by a decision I made at 21.

To the LW, keep writing. At the same time, find a job that will give you a bit of satisfaction and independence (that may mean moving to an area where you can use public transportation). At first, you may have to take a job where you don't write, but keep writing. Write at every opportunity. Write for free. Tell people you like to write. If you write well and promote your skills, you will find your career turn in that direction, although it will be slower than you had hoped and never everything you dreamed it would be.

If you find you don't have the dedication or desire to keep writing, than stop and do something else. Now is the time to explore and despair and cross things off your list. You will have some successes, some failures, and a lot of nothing, but that's what life is, whether you write articles or practice law or make candles. College can't prepare you for periods of stagnation and uncertainty because you're only there for four (and a half) years. They have to set an unrealistic pace, which means they also have to make life unnaturally defined. Accept the slow, murky beauty of everyday life and relish the occasional bursts of clarity. You will be surprised how quickly you adjust your expectations and create a respectable career.

The alternative is to sink deeper into cynicism until you find yourself ranting about the downfall of civilization and the corruption of English semantics...which rarely pays the bills.

"I am a writer of the first magnitude, just handicapped, as it were, by cynicism and apathy, or should it read, apathy and cynicism, maybe cynicism and apathy? Anyway, you get the picture: I don't know anyone worth writing for"

Who is this arrogant and pretentious twerp, Compassus, I thought to myself as I sipped my first but certainly not last cup of coffee for the day. Intrigued, I found myself reading more and then more and then still more of his letters. Now, although the style is a little florid for my taste, I find myself agreeing with most of what he has to say. Self-declared writers of the first magnitude are so rarely what they claim to be. This may be an exception.

I started as a journalist just a couple of years ago, thankfully before the crash. It was hard at first because I wasn't at the top of my class, but I found a niche.

You might want to consider small-town weekly newspapers. There are always openings in those because people view them as stepping-stones on their way to big dailies. This will almost certainly involve serious relocation.

Especially consider regions ironically more dependent on government handouts than private industry, which has been drying up lately while the government taps have yet to close. Me, I am a reporter in the remote Canadian Arctic and am quite successful here in a big-fish-small-pond way. I grew up in the manufacturing centre of southern Ontario, where the economy is basically dead now. I have no immediate plans to go back.

How is Alaska's economy these days?

MaxMillion: "For the record "last" is final. FINAL. As in "The last days of the dinosaurs before they became extinct...""

Man, you are an ignorant twit. "Last" has multiple meanings. If somebody says, "I got drunk last night," would you tell him he's wrong and should have said...

"I got drunk past night."

"I got drunk prior night."

"I got drunk previous night."

"I got drunk the latest night."

???

No, you would know exactly what he meant, and you would also know that he didn't mean:

"I got drunk the final night."

You say grammar matters. Well, so does context. And in the context of this message board, you are an ignorant twit.