News Cut: February 25, 2009 Archive

Hello, Moorhead!

Posted at 11:42 AM on February 25, 2009 by Bob Collins (0 Comments)
Filed under: News Cut on Campus

This is the last stop on the News Cut on Campus tour. I'm in the student union today at Minnesota State University Moorhead. As I've done every Wednesday for the last 7 weeks, I'm talking to students about their economy and their journey. I'll be posting profiles later today.

11:02 a.m. -- The tables have been turned. I've been interviewed by the local ABC affiliate. "What have I found on the tour?" That people are more optimistic about their future and the future of the economy than we people who cover them. Oh, and that there are a lot of people with cameras taking pictures of me right now. Which is scary.

11:30 a.m. - Nate Matson of Twin Valley stopped by. He graduated from McNally Smith College in St. Paul. He wanted to go into a career in audio and recording production, but has moved back to Moorhead and is pursuing a career in journalism, instead.

12:11 p.m. - Mark Matsuura of Burnsville is an online journalism student. He may be the first person I've ever met who's studying online journalism. How does the economy intersect with his strategy? What few jobs that are available in journalism, are likely to be online. I often wonder why more journalism students don't know or aren't told that these days.

12:38 p.m. - James Munsch of Brainerd just dropped in to tell me how he pays for school. He allows himself to be used for medical experiments and he sells his plasma. Seriously. He wants to be an art professor.

12:45 p.m. - Michael Ramsdell Jr. of Brainerd is studying to be a professor of Middle Eastern history. There are three times as many jobs for professors of Middle Eastern history than professors of European history, he says. He's paying for school through more traditional means -- his parents and loans. "As long as you stay in school, nothing bad can hurt you," he said.

1:08 p.m. - About done for the session. Sara Bowman of Casselton, North Dakota was my last interviewee. She wants to be a biology teacher.

What I've learned so far today: The economy of Fargo-Moorhead is doing very well. Partly because so many people are employed in education, it has been somewhat isolated from the downturn. However, many people are concerned that may change with higher education budget cuts.

Off to speak to a class. Talk amongst yourselves.

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On Campus: The broadcast journalist

Posted at 6:48 PM on February 25, 2009 by Bob Collins (0 Comments)
Filed under: News Cut on Campus

Nathan Matson of Twin Valley, Minnesota has felt the sting of the economy and escaped it, for now.

He's studying broadcast journalism at Minnesota State University Moorhead, this week's stop on the News Cut on Campus "listening tour." He studied at a music college in St. Paul with a plan to work in the music recording business. "I thought I had a plan, but then the plan got botched. I wanted to work in a recording studio in the music business and I did it for awhile and it lost all its 'glitz and glam.'"

"You think you're going to work with these great people in a great studio and you're going to make money, and all of a sudden you find yourself broke and looking for work, without health benefits, and you have to do your own taxes. I thought I could tough it out," he told me.

So he and his wife, who's studying international business, escaped to the Fargo Moorhead area. "Economically speaking, this was the place to live. You get to a point in life where you know you can live somewhere else for cheaper and get the same out of it, so why not? Maybe it doesn't make much sense to pay $800 a month when I can pay $500 a month," he said.

The region "feels like it hasn't been hit as bad," according to Matson. The cost of living is low, some companies are hiring, and the large number of colleges and universities has insulated many people from the cyclical economy. In Moorhead in particular, education is a business and there's plenty of concern that state cuts to higher education are going to hurt it.

"I was a fan of Public Radio and maybe I could go into journalism and learn how to write well and tell stories. So I'll have a technical background and a writing background and may be someone will want me to work for them," he said of his new career goal. But part of his passion remains in his "inner audio geek."

"I'm going to be a guy who can do a little bit of a lot of things," he said, reciting the formula a lot experts say is the right one for the new economy. "If someone wants me to work in radio, I can do that. If they want me to work in a studio, I can do that. If they want me to go on the road, I can do that."

What he's not sure how to do is pay off the accumulating student loan debt. By the time he graduates next year, it'll be $60,000-$70,000.

He wonders if it's been worth it.

His mother says "just don't think about it."

"I say, 'Easy for you to say. You're not the one who'll have to cut $700 a month out of the paycheck for 30 years.' And if you don't have a job, you still have to pay these loans. So it starts to eat at you," he said.

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On Campus: The art professor

Posted at 7:48 PM on February 25, 2009 by Bob Collins (0 Comments)
Filed under: News Cut on Campus

I have been impressed -- very impressed -- during the News Cut on Campus tour of colleges and universities in Minnesota with the resourcefulness of students to identify a goal and then figure out a way to pursue it. It's why the "we are not quitters" quote from the young woman cited in Barack Obama's speech the other night struck a chord. Judging by the newscasts, the country seems to have thrown up its hands and packed it in. The impression is incorrect.

James Munsch, 21, of Brainerd wants to be an art professor. When I saw him walking around the student union at Minnesota State University Moorhead with that piece of art, I had to encourage him to sit down and talk. "We're doing 3D forms and 3D sculptures and one of the elements we can use is volume," he said.

He was taking calculus and engineering courses at North Dakota State University, "and I discovered it wasn't very much fun. I could do the practical thing and become an engineer and make some money. Or I could do the not-so-practical thing and go into art. So I made a compromise and I figured I'd just become an art teacher, because I'm fairly sure I can get a job doing that," he said during my News Cut on Campus stop on Wednesday.

He'd like to "do experimenting" on high school kids and then "move on up."

How does he plan to pay for an extensive network of education? "I submit my body to medical studies in the Fargo Moorhead area." A local research firm, Pracs Institute, conducts research on genetic drugs, and pays people -- including many college students -- to participate in research studies. He's trying to get into a study on nitroglycerin. He says students can make anywhere from "$300 to $5,000." He also donates plasma twice a week for another $260 a month.

"So many college kids are doing that; they're selling themselves so they can pay for school," he reports.

Between colleges and software companies, the Fargo-Moorhead region is doing very well economically, according to Munsch. "It's kind of secluded up here on the barren tundra," but even if it wasn't, Munsch doesn't appear to be the type to let rumors of a collapsing economy get to him. "We intentionally don't purchase cable or listen to the mass media," he says. "We have a subscription to the Economist but they're slanted and neo-liberal. They've had a huge transition in the rhetoric. It was 'free markets, free markets, free markets' and now it's 'Oh, nooooo!'"

Munsch says he subscribes to the theory of the blue-collar economy. "Go to work, make your money, and don't be one of those corrupt elites," he says.

And maybe buy a little art once in awhile.

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On Campus: The online journalist

Posted at 7:06 PM on February 25, 2009 by Bob Collins (0 Comments)
Filed under: Media, News Cut on Campus

It was fitting that I talked to Mark Matsuura of Burnsville on a day when San Francisco was about to become the first major American city not to have not daily newspaper.

I sat up straight when Matsuura told me about his career track: Online journalism. He is the first journalism student I've encountered in 35+ of doing this who told me he wanted to be an online journalist.

That in itself is a lesson in the economy. Whose job will he get when he graduates from Minnesota State University Moorhead in a couple of years? Probably a journalist who doesn't want to do online journalism. "It has more future than print," he said. In other words: It has a future. Adaptability is a plus.

During my stop at the school at part of the News Cut on Campus listening tour to gauge the effect the economy is having on students, Matsuura said he'd like to write about technology issues.

He says he hasn't found the economy to be much of "a challenge" paying for school. "I pay for half and my parents pay for half," he said. "I'm not too worried about loans; I'll deal with it later. You make a choice to go to school and you can't just stop because you don't have the money right now."

Some students I've encountered during this two-month project have said they're somewhat worried about their parents' jobs, and the possibility a layoff might disrupt their own schooling. Matsuura says he has no such worries. His dad is a big cog for a small company; his mother just survived the latest round of layoffs at her business.

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On Campus: The Middle Eastern Medieval historian

Posted at 8:34 PM on February 25, 2009 by Bob Collins (0 Comments)
Filed under: News Cut on Campus

Michael Ramsdell Jr. of Brainerd figures he's in the safest place to be during an economic meltdown -- school.

The Minnesota State University Moorhead senior is studying to be a history professor. He'll go to grad school next, "then a job or a doctorate depending on how bad the economy is."

The world has played right into Ramsdell's plans. He learned how to speak Arabic and he wants to specialize in Middle Eastern Medieval history. "It's the highest demand area for history," he says. "There's maybe 5,000 job openings a year in European studies, but in Middle Eastern history, there's 15,000 to 20,000. It's expanding thanks to the war on terror."

If he doesn't become a professor, he figures there'll be a job with the government, especially for a guy who can speak Arabic.

In the meantime, he can shut out the economy at school. "I just tell myself that I'm going to go and get my doctorate. The worst that can happen to me is I get my doctorate. As long as you stay in school, nothing bad is going to happen. You might be poor and living out of a dumpster and living on the street, but at least you're not that bad off. You could be living in China," he said.

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