What training to start a magazine?

How would you answer this question:

I am a college student and want to produce my own magazine one day and I'm trying to figure out should I major in jounalilsm or not. Currently my major is journalism with a certificate in entreprenuership. But my academic advisor said if I want to start a magazine, journalism wasn't for me. She told me that journalism is for writers.

I answered thus (but welcome other views):

What qualifications you seek depend on what aspect of running a magazine appeals to you most. The three sides are editorial, advertising, circulation and a qualification in journalism with some training in business as you seem to be doing would seem to me to be a good start.

However, I'm reminded of one of the directors of one of Britain's largest magazine publishers several years ago. He worked his way up from being a sales rep on a music paper in London to being one of those running a business with several hundred publications. But he started out as a merchant seaman -- with no qualifications at all -- and told me that he would pick the dirtiest, most rusty ships in port to sign on with, because they went to the most interesting places.

His training was basically in "life", and he was equally at home with the rock musicians as with the heads of the entertainment/electronics industry conglomerates.

Maybe that isn't for you, but I'd suggest that before starting your own magazine you should seek work with some of the down market magazines -- especially those which are short of both staff and money. You'll have to do everything, but as a result you'll learn how everything is done. It won't be financially rewarding, so you may want to also spend some time, if you can get it, in a job with one of the major groups and see how things are done at that end of the market.

You will be criticized if you take a junior, poorly paid job after a better paid one, but it is the way to really learn what can not be learned in college.

You should also read as much as possible -- books such as mine, and those by Cheryl Woodard and James Kobak (which we did not publish) but which we recommend on the Worsley Press website, as well as magazines of all kinds. Any spare time can be put into helping with some of the "zines".

Basically, you need to see the mistakes that others make so that you can try to avoid them, or at least have an idea of what to do when you do make them.

Comments?