While learning for its own sake is commendable, most people thinking about graduate school also are at least a little bit interested in how a master's program might fit into their career plans.
If you want to be a working journalist, then PAR is a perfect match for you. The program enjoys an excellent placement record, averaging close to 100 percent for each graduating class. Last spring's graduates, for example, are now working as print reporters in the Chicago suburbs and for papers in Illinois, Florida, Missouri, and North Carolina, as well as with the Washington, D.C., bureau of The Associated Press. One broadcast grad is a Statehouse reporter in Springfield; others are broadcast reporters with Illinois television stations and Michigan public radio.
In all, more than 500 students have gone through PAR over the last four decades, and roughly two-thirds of them currently are with the media or in media-related fields. Their ranks include editors, columnists and reporters at the Chicago Tribune, Chicago Sun-Times, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, The Washington Post, The Arizona Republic, Minneapolis Star Tribune, The Denver Post, The (Baltimore) Sun, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, International Herald Tribune, and other major metropolitan newspapers, as well as with The Associated Press and Reuters.
Broadcast alums are executives, producers and reporters with television and radio outlets in the Chicago, St. Louis, Washington, Atlanta, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Denver, Indianapolis, Raleigh-Durham, Nashville, and Kansas City markets, as well as in other markets throughout the U.S.
And the Capitol press corps includes 17 PAR alums, 10 of them bureau chiefs.
Actually, there'd be something amiss if the PAR program did not post impressive placement results year after year, considering what graduates bring to the table. PAR products start their professional careers fresh from full-time jobs, cleverly disguised as internships, covering the complexities of Illinois government for the state's leading media outlets. They have the clips and the resume tapes to show what they did in the demanding environment of the Statehouse, where, in Mr. Dooley's words, "Politics ain't beanbag."
In addition to finely-honed reporting and writing skills, PAR grads also acquire in-depth knowledge of the most critical public affairs issues of the day, from abortion regulation to welfare reform, including such topics as school finance, health care, and taxation.
In short, students leaving the PAR program are prepared to step into the most demanding beats a newsroom has to offer, and the media managers who do the hiring know it. That's why managing editors and news directors with openings on their news staffs call us looking for alums who might be available; in fact, frequently the callers are PAR grads themselves.
So not only is there life after PAR, but the program's track record shows that graduates have bright prospects for a great job and a solid professional career.