I'd say it has definitely paid off, Chatty,

Both my son and daughter are employed in the field of newspapering.

My son started as a photographer, has won several prestigious awards and not only shot Katrina's immediate aftermath, but also experienced it. (He and a reporter for People magazine drove into the City to shoot and take pictures. The reporter got so freaked out he took off with the car and abandoned my son.) Zach ended up having to sleep on the streets, while protecting his equipment from being looted. The next day he met up with another group of news people, managed to get some food, and continued working.

Cell phones didn't work, and he managed to find a working pay phone and call People's NYC offices to report in. He told them they needed sat phones and cash (ATMs didn't work without electricity). The next day People flew in a private plane with supplies for ALL their reporters - as a result of Zach's keeping his head and figuring out how to get word out.

Zach tells of shooting images there in New Orleans that were so horrendous that seasoned war reporters were in tears. He also helped rescue a group of nuns who had been trapped by the flooding and receiving a blessing from them. I know that meant a lot to him.

He also managed to call me and tell me he had been working in the flood waters, and somehow needed to get some antibiotics to keep him safe due to the contamination (there were dead bodies and who knows what else in the water). I called a friend who is a dentist and told him what was going on. The man called in a prescription to his local Walgreen's and them we let Zach know to go to ANY Walgreen's he could find, to get his prescription.

All this because Zach was on his way to Tampa for a new job at the St Pete Times when he heard about a bad storm heading to NO and decided to detour over there to see what was happening. (He'd been working as a freelancer, and called his agent to see if the agent could find someone who wanted his work. The agent hooked him up with People.)

Since the St Pete job, he has worked for several big papers as a shooter and these days he is manager of the graphics department for his paper -- as well as doing some shooting.

I am sure his education combined with his native skills have brought him to where he is.

As for my daughter, she graduated with High Honors from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and she is an editor at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

I don't think either of them are paid what they are worth, due to the challenges journalism faces right now. But they ARE employed and well respected by their peers and employers.