Graduate Degree Requirements

Plan of Study/Commencement of Program

Upon admission to the graduate program in mass communication, each student will be assigned a faculty advisor by the appropriate department chair. In most cases, this will be the director of the appropriate graduate program. The advisor will be responsible for developing the student's plan of

study, requesting applicable transfer of credit where appropriate, monitoring the student's academic progress, and ensuring the fulfillment of the requirements for the masters degree by completing the student's Program of Studies with the student. This will also include a timetable for completion of the work. Any changes in the plan must be approved by the faculty advisor and the appropriate chair. It is also the faculty advisor's responsibility to complete a Graduate GPA Course Inclusion Form for classes that are part of the masters program but were taken prior to the student's full admission and/or are lower division classes.

In addition to the development of a plan of study, the advisor must evaluate any deficiencies which may require additional course work.

Students must have computer word processing skills. Typed work will be required throughout the program.

Course work

To earn the Master of Science in Mass Communication degree, students must meet the following requirements.

Complete a minimum of 36 hours of acceptable credit as prescribed by the graduate program; of those hours, at least 30 must be at the graduate level and, all courses in the SJMC taken toward graduation must be at the graduate level.

At least 27 hours must be in School of Journalism and Mass Communication courses.

Core Curriculum

All students, in all areas of specialization, must take nine hours of core courses as follows:

Professional Project

In order to satisfy the professional project requirement, students must register for MMC 6950 as any other three-credit course. If the requirements for the project are not satisfied during the semester, an incomplete grade of “IF” will be awarded. Students who receive the incomplete grade must register for the one-credit hour continuation course (MMC 6951) in subsequent semesters. Students have the ability to register for this continuation course for two semesters only. These one credit continuations will be graded Pass/Fail and will reflect the status of the original three-credit hour course. If an incomplete project is not completed within two semesters after the original course or if the student fails to register for the one-credit course after receiving the incomplete grade, the original grade will be changed to an “F” grade and the student will need to re-register for the entire three-credit course.