God Bless America! (personal opinion)

As an exchange student in the United States I always compare educational system here with one back home, in Ukraine. It is easy for me to see a significant difference in everything from professors to class assignments. And as a journalism major here and in my home University, I can particularly compare the way journalism and the freedom of speech are treated in America. You would say – “Oh, boring. What about U.S? Big corporations control the whole media sector and there is almost no freedom of speech at all.” But the majority of people don’t realize that an ability to say that and to criticize an existing system is already a freedom of speech.
When I decided to take journalism classes at Ithaca College, NY, I expected them to be more then propagandistic towards American broadcast. Because that’s exactly what we, Europeans, expect from Americans. They love their country and everything that’s connected to the U.S. But surprisingly, not even some, but all of my classes turned to be against the existing system in this country. It seemed that the goal of every class was to criticize the system as much as you can and as a result to turn to “blessed” independent media. Students in my classes were really disappointed to find out how big corporations control their minds and the whole flow of information. But for me the experience was different. I was amazed by the way journalism classes are held in the United States. Once one of my professors, Vadim Isakov, who turned to be from Turkmenistan, where freedom of speech is “unachievable good”, after about thirty minutes of pure criticism towards American broadcast TV, said “Guys, you are so lucky to have an opportunity to have this kind of discussion in your class. In my country we all would probably be already arrested.” And even though I can’t say the same about my country, I realized at that point how important it is just to have that kind of discussion without a fear to be “punished.”
And that is not the only advantage of studying journalism in the U.S. What about professors? I mean, how important it is to have professors teaching journalism, who are not just theoretical experts, but actual journalists themselves. For Americans it would probably sound funny, but for me having someone, who worked at the biggest channels in the country, who published his own book and met the most influential people in journalism sphere teaching me in my class is something that cannot be described.
In the journalism department here students also have opportunities to participate in the real newspaper, TV channel or magazine. They constantly have famous guest speakers from different parts of the country. I mean, just imagine such professionals as Amy Goodman and Glenn Greenwald coming to College town to give a speech and accept an award (http://theithacan.org/am/publish/news/200903_Izzy_award_recipient_Amy_Goodman_to_speak_in_Ithaca.shtml). For journalism students it is a priceless experience.
Yes, America is the land of opportunities. Opportunities to criticize and speak out. Opportunities to teach journalists critical thinking and action. Opportunities to love your country, but notice its system problems at the same time. It is difficult for Americans to realize how lucky they are to have open debates and discussions, to be able to criticize something that is not perfect. Maybe, it is not enough to proclaim the complete freedom of speech in the country. But it is definitely enough to have a basis to develop one.