It takes passion and stamina to face down politicians ducking tough questions, to dig out the corruption in corporate records, to chase down rumors and cultivate sources. And it demands skill to boil reality down to 20 inches of newspaper type, to two televised minutes or a single photographic image.

At UAF Journalism, we can't teach you that passion or grit. But we will teach you the skills you need to step into a newsroom and start covering the cop beat, to file your first photo assignment without missing your deadline, or to deliver your first stand-up without shaking and stuttering.

As working journalists, we know you can't learn most of this by sitting in a lecture hall taking notes or by memorizing theories. We'll teach you the tricks of the trade by sending you out to cover local elections or to investigate a questionable murder conviction. You'll produce your own newscast in a professional television studio, work on a student newspaper so intent on doing its job that it has been known to file suit against its own university, and producing our award-winning online publication, Extreme Alaska.

By the time you are ready for your professional internship in print, photojournalism, television or new media, you won't have to ask if the government can hide records from you; you'll understand precisely your legal right to information. You won't drown in your first ethical quandary; you'll have worked through a dozen of them and formed your personal approach. And you'll have become addicted to the peculiar adrenaline of American journalists, a delicious sense that what you do every day really counts.