“Erin, can you stay after class today? I want to talk to you a minute.” We were shuffling around in a black-box theater, dusting off our jeans after lying on the floor trying to breathe ourselves two inches below the surface, tensing each muscle in our bodies in slow succession, imagining our animal selves. I picked a dust bunny off my thigh and tried to avoid making eye contact. “Sure, Scott,” I said quietly. “I mean, I guess I’ve got a minute.”

A first-year journalism student, I had credits to burn: As it turns out, hopeful new reporters aren’t expected to become experts in anything—except coaxing information out of subjects who do have expertise of one type or another, then digesting that information into something the average magazine-reading schmuck can understand and appreciate. As such, journalism school is a study in knowing a little bit about a lot of things, and academic…