Strategic Communication

Why Study Strategic Communication?

The Strategic Communication program is designed to teach students to be smart influencers and to further an organization's mission through communication with a purpose. Degree options in the Strategic Communication program include:

• Public Relations. PR professionals work with institutions, non-profit groups, agencies and companies to create strategic messages for social media, web sites, press releases and other venues.
• Advertising. Advertising professionals develop strategic plans for companies and institutions to create and place their messages across media platforms, curate influencers, and develop their own messaging talents.
• Media Sales. Media sales professionals, which are among the highest paid across the media industries, spend their time helping clients build their brands and client base through targeted placement and development of creative messages.
• Organizational Communication. When a crisis hits a company, institution or nonprofit, the organizational communication professionals get busy. Their job is to help an organization ensure effective communication internally as well as externally to meet the institution's goals.

The Strategic Communication field is the art and science of the earned, owned, paid and shared media model. Demand for graduates for these important skills are rising, with the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reporting that jobs associated with strategic communication positions are expected to increase by about 9 percent by 2030. The Strategic Communication program teaches students how to deploy an array of tools to craft, track and measure communication effectiveness while gaining a complete understanding of paid, earned, shared and owned media. This program offers four tracks: Public Relations, Advertising, Media Sales, and Organizational Communication. 

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What Will I Learn?

All students in the School of Media and Communication begin their journeys with a small set of core courses. These are COM110, a one-hour class that discusses the careers and opportunities available in Media and Communication; COM210, a two-hour skills class centered on Digital Skills, and COM310, Social and Digital Media, which introduces students to analyzing and creating social media. Stratcom students then take a core set of courses designed to impart the basics of persuasive writing and design techniques, as well as law and ethics. Students are asked to select one of four specialties, Public Relations, for students who see themselves entering agency or corporate PR jobs; Advertising, for students who see themselves on the creative side of messaging; Media Sales, for those who want to go into media purchasing and selling, and Organizational Communication, for students who want to help companies and business improve leadership and management efficiency and efficacy.

Your success is our success.

Whether working with students on class projects or honors theses, team projects or student groups, advising or chatting when we run into you on campus, we take the time to get to know our students. All of the faculty in the School are active in research projects and creative endeavors, balancing disciplinary leadership positions, and serving the university in important ways, but we always find time to help students. Your success is our success.

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