Dear Coach,

I am in a graduate school program that is unrelated to journalism. My fear: That I will lose touch with the news business and won’t have any clips to show hiring editors when I graduate. How can I keep my hand in journalism while in school so that I can get a reporting job when I graduate? — Losing touch

Dear Touch

Grad school, as you know, is a huge commitment that eats up most of your time. So how do you keep your hand in journalism? The short answer: Condense, cross-pollinate and write.

Try any or all of the following suggestions.

• Do you write a blog in a fresh, non-academic voice about your area of study? If not, start one. Make sure the posts are connected to things going on the world or community.

• Does your school have a newspaper? If so, offer your blog posts to the online edition. Or offer to write a series of editorials, based on your best blog posts.

• Is your school in a community that has a newspaper or online news organization? If so, talk to the editor about contributing an occasional op-ed piece, news feature or Q&A about goings-on at the university. Focus your writing on activities you’re involved in already. Again, use your blog posts to build from.

• Have you checked for online publications in your area of study? Submit some short pieces to them, again, using what you are already writing about in the blogs.

Important to remember: You don’t have to be connected to a news organization to produce or even to distribute fresh, compelling writing. So keep – or start – writing fresh. When you graduate, you will have a body of work to show hiring editors.

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