All You Ever Wanted to Know about Graduate School in Communication Studies

Information from the National Communication Association 

Instruction in communication is widely available in the United States and is growing rapidly in Canada and in other countries. According to the Department of Education’s Center on Educational Statistics, the communication discipline in higher education shows approximately 57,000 communication majors pursuing undergraduate degrees and 6,000 seeking graduate degrees in communication. Depending on the school, you can earn: a certificate of proficiency, associate degree, bachelor of arts and science, masters of arts and science, and/or a doctor of philosophy or education.  

There are 1243 institutions across the United States that offer communication programs. Click above for details about undergraduate or graduate programs. The buttons to the left provide direct links to: communication departments, statistics about communication, faculty and student statistics, and CIP 2000 (The Department of Education's classification and description of communication as a discipline). 

Areas of Concentration in the Communication Discipline

 Many subject matters are encompassed in the field of communication. While areas of emphasis differ from one school to another, some of the most common include:  

• Applied Communication: The study of processes used to analyze communication needs of organizations and social interaction, including the design of training to improve communication between supervisors and employees.       
• Communication Education: The study of speech communication in the classroom and other pedagogical contexts.
• Communication Theory: The study of principles that account for the impact of communication in human social interaction.
•  Family Communication: The study of communication unique to family systems.        
• Gender Communication: The study of gender and sex differences and similarities in communication and the unique characteristics of male-female communication.
• Health Communication: The study of communication as it relates to health professionals and health education, including the study of provider-client interaction as well as the diffusion of health information through public health campaigns.   
• International and Intercultural Communication: The study of communication among individuals of different cultural backgrounds, including the study of similarities and differences across cultures.   
• Interpersonal Communication: The study of communication behaviors in dyads (pairs) and their impact on personal relationships.   
• Language and Social Interaction: The study of the structure of verbal and nonverbal behaviors occurring in social interaction.        
• Legal Communication: The study of the role of communication as it relates to the legal system.      
• Mass Communication and Media Literacy: The study of the uses, processes, and effects of mediated communication.        
• Mediation and Dispute Resolution: The study of understanding, management, and resolution of conflict in intrapersonal, interpersonal, and intergroup situations.           
• Performance Studies: The study of communication as performance, including its components, that is performer(s), text, audience, and context.
•  Political Communication: The study of the role that communication plays in political systems.         
• Public Address: The study of speakers and speeches, including the historical and social context of platforms, campaigns, and movements.   
• Public Relations: The study of the management of communication between an organization and its audiences.    
• Rhetorical Criticism: The study of principles that account for the impact of human communication between speaker and audience.    
• Semiotics: The use of verbal and nonverbal symbols and signs in human communication.   
• Small Group Communication: The study of communication systems among three or more individuals who interact around a common purpose and who influence one another.         
• Speech Communication: The study of the nature, processes, and effects of human symbolic interaction. While speech is the most obvious mode of communication, human symbolic interaction includes a variety of verbal and nonverbal codes.            
• Theatre and Drama: The study and production of dramatic literature.   
• Visual Communication: The study of visual data, such as architecture, photography, visual art, advertising, film, and television as it relates to communication.

Graduate Education 

Graduate school might be an option if you’re interested in acquiring additional knowledge and skills in communication beyond the undergraduate level. Selecting a graduate school requires forethought. Graduate studies in communication can be undertaken at the masters’ and doctorate levels.

Many graduate students in communication are interested in pursuing a career in college teaching and research. With the exception of some community colleges and private schools, a Ph.D. is usually preferred, if not required, for employment as an entry-level instructor. There are, of course, good nonacademic positions in public and private organizations for someone with an advanced communication degree. For example, a master’s degree in organizational communication might lead to a career in management or in human resources training.  

Graduate level courses vary from school to school, just as at the undergraduate level.  Contact schools you are interested in attending and request information regarding their major field offerings or consult such sources as: NCA Directory of Graduate Programs, Journalism and Mass Communication Directory, and Peterson’s Guides to Graduate and Professional Programs: An Overview.  

After narrowing your list of prospective graduate schools, the next step is to contact the schools that interest you for a copy of their graduate program guide. Look through the guide to analyze each department’s course offerings, any financial assistance that is available, and job placement trends for recent graduates in your desired area of concentration. There are no regularly updated official rankings of the proficiency of communication programs.  You might want to do your own investigation by seeking recommendations from professors or other experts in the field or researching the publication record of faculty members on the staff of the prospective schools.  

In planning for graduate education, whether at the master’s or doctoral level, be aware that many schools give stipends and/or a waiver of tuition for being a graduate, research, or teaching assistant. Graduate assistants aid professors in their research projects, coach forensics/debate teams, or assist in departmental projects. Research assistants  help professors pursue inquiry into one of the areas of communication. Teaching assistants instruct in speech courses, usually under the supervision of a full-time faculty member.  

Reputations of Doctoral Granting Programs in Communication. NCA completed a study in April 1996 that measured the reputations of doctoral programs in communication in the United States. This online paper offers a listing of the top-ranked schools, and provides a description of the methodology and analysis procedures behind the rankings.  

Links to Communication Departments and Programs.

NCA provides links to communication departments at many colleges and universities. Go to this link for more information:  http://www.natcom.org/ComProg/GPDHTM/default.htm

Here is an example of one program:

Curriculum requirements for a Communication Studies Graduate Program at the University of Minnesota 

Curriculum 

Communication studies focuses on the study of communicative dimensions of human experience using humanistic and social scientific methods. This program prepares students to become researchers and teachers, offering two concentrations: communication theory and rhetorical studies.

Coursework in communication theory has a social scientific orientation. Most students focus on a sub-area such as small group, organizational, intercultural, electronic media, interpersonal communication, or problems (e.g., decision making, conflict resolution, information diffusion). Coursework outside the department is usually concentrated in one or more of the behavioral sciences. Students are expected to develop a command of research techniques and a thorough knowledge of statistics. Interdisciplinary programs are encouraged.

Coursework in rhetoric and public address emphasizes humanistic methods and includes argumentation and persuasion, media studies, ethics, rhetorical theory and criticism, and American public address. Students may also pursue special interests in rhetorical philosophies, movements and campaigns, popular culture, or historical and contemporary political speaking. The program should be supplemented by coursework outside the department. An understanding of history, political science, sociology, or other social sciences is recommended.

Prerequisites for Admission

All applicants must have completed at least 15 undergraduate credits in speech or communication courses related to their proposed area of emphasis in the department. A brochure detailing prerequisite requirements is available from the department. All prerequisites must be completed before admission.

Special Application Requirements 

Applicants must submit scores from the GRE General Test, transcripts of all postsecondary academic work, and a written statement of academic and occupational objectives. Three letters of recommendation are required of all applicants for assistantships or fellowships. A deadline of January 15 is recommended for students applying for teaching assistantships or University fellowships for the following academic year.

Application Procedure

Any student with a U.S. bachelor’s degree or a comparable foreign degree from a recognized college or university may apply to the Graduate School dean for admission. Applicants with the necessary background for their chosen major field, an excellent scholastic record from an approved college or university, and appropriate professional qualifications may be admitted for graduate work on recommendation of the graduate faculty in the proposed major field and approval of the Graduate School dean. The Graduate School operational standard for admission is an undergraduate grade point average (GPA) of 3.00. Many programs require a higher GPA. Applicants should consult the program to which they are applying for more specific information about admission standards.

Note: More detailed and up-to-date information regarding the application fee, transcripts, and test data is included in the instructions accompanying the Graduate School Application for Admission.

Tips to be successful in a Communication Studies Graduate Program

1. Develop a critical, analytical mind.  Question everything you already "know."  Synthesize.
2. Understand that knowledge is cumulative.
3. Develop a seriousness of purpose in your graduate studies.
4. Get a fix on theories and all their pieces and parts.  Make sure you discuss all the parts in your papers.  Think about how each theory applies to a real-world communication problem.  Be able to dissect and reassemble models of communication as well.
5. Make sure you understand the differences between various methods of knowing and inquiry in social science.  Think about how you would apply a research method to a particular real-world communication problem.
6. Pay attention to print, broadcast and online news, speeches, politics, interpersonal communication, intrapersonal communication, corporate communication, governmental communication, advertising, theatre and public relations activities.  Critically analyze all of this in your daily life.
7. Practice applying theories and professional practices you have learned to real-world communication problems.
8. When your professor assigns you to read five books, make sure when you are writing about the fifth book that you include how it relates to the other four books you have read and digested.  You did read the other four books didn't you?
9. Remember some of what you learn in the research methods course.  You should be able to immediately explain what nominal, ordinal, interval and ratio data are, what probability is, what a chi-square is, what a t-test is, what intercoder reliability is, what a pretest-posttest experiment is, what a random sample is, what a focus group is, what content analysis is, what ethnography is, etc., etc., etc.
10. Get familiar with the library.  Know what an abstract is.  Know what an index is.  Know where to find Communication Abstracts.  Figure out the various databases available.  Get acquainted with the various communication and mass communications journals.
11. Talk to your professors about your research ideas early.  Get a fix on what you really want to investigate.  Figure out the various parts of a thesis including the introduction, lit review, research questions and hypotheses, method, results, discussion and recommendations.  Make sure your thesis will answer the so what? question.  Think a great deal about the feasibility of the thesis you are proposing.
12. Yes, you should have a seriousness of purpose, but discovering new answers to old and new communication problems is very exciting.  When you apply your own knowledge and hypotheses or research questions to a real-world communication problem in your thesis, the real adventure begins
13. Get involved in the professional association for your academic discipline.  This is another activity that can help you get a career boost and change your life.

Nine Tips for Better Writing to Get Accepted Into Grad School 

1. Express yourself in positive language. Say what is, not what is not.

2. Use transitions between paragraphs. Transitions tie one paragraph to the next.

*A transition can be a word, like later, furthermore, additionally, or moreover; a phrase like After this incident...; or an entire sentence.

*If you are writing about Topic A and now want to discuss Topic B, you can begin the new paragraph with a transition such as "Like (or unlike) Topic A, Topic B..."

3. Vary your sentence structure. It's boring to see subject, verb, object all the time. Mix simple, complex, and compound sentences.

4. Understand the words you write. You write to communicate, not to impress the admissions staff with your vocabulary. When you choose a word that means something other than what you intend, you neither communicate nor impress. You do convey the wrong message or convince the admissions officer that you are inarticulate.

5. Look up synonyms in a thesaurus when you use the same word repeatedly. After the DELETE key, the thesaurus is your best friend. As long as you follow Tip 4, using one will make your writing more interesting.

6. Be succinct. Compare:

*During my sophomore and junior years, there was significant development of my maturity and markedly improved self-discipline towards school work.

*During my sophomore and junior years, I matured and my self-discipline improved tremendously.

The first example takes many more words to give the same information. The admissions officers are swamped; they do not want to spend more time than necessary reading your essay. Say what you have to say in as few words as possible. Tips 7, 8, and 9 will help you to implement this suggestion.

7. Make every word count. Do not repeat yourself. Each sentence and every word should state something new.

8. Avoid qualifiers such as rather, quite, somewhat, probably, possibly, etc.

*You might improve your writing somewhat if you sometimes try to follow this suggestion.  

The example contains nonsense. Deleting unnecessary qualifiers will strengthen your writing 1000%.

9. Use the active voice. Compare:

*The application was sent by the student. (Passive voice)

*The student sent the application. (Active voice)