Excellence in communication is a key to personal and professional success.  At St. Kate's communication studies major provides a student with theoretical understanding and practical skill in intercultural communication, advanced public speaking and argumentation skills, and media theory and applied practice. The curriculum offers students the opportunity to develop their powers of clear explanation and persuasion, which are the keys to success for professional communicators.

As a Communication Studies major, students are required to complete internships. Students intern in the communications offices of major corporations and at small businesses, nonprofits, government agencies, advertising and public relations agencies, and radio and television stations and networks. Recent internship sites include Best Buy, BI Performance Services, Dynamark Corporation, Ecolab, Green Tree Financial, Medtronic, the Minnesota Department of Transportation, KMSP-TV, KDWB radio station, and the St. Paul Heritage and Festival Foundation.

This program prepares students for successful careers in fields as diverse as government, law, business, public engagement and advocacy, ministry, and teaching. Graduates are employed in personnel, human relations, human resources, volunteer coordination, organizational consulting, public relations, promotion and advertising, management, sales and a wide range of other positions within organizations. Students also regularly go onto graduate programs in law, business, and leadership.  In order to assist students in choosing a career path that most suits their interests, career exploration is “baked into” many courses beginning with the intro level, into the intermediate, and culminating in senior seminar.

See also: Communication: Community Engagement, Digital Media and Social Influence

This major is available in the College for Women only.

Curriculum

The major in communication studies requires completion of at least 32 credits:

Communication studies majors satisfy the Writing Requirement for Majors by completing COMM 1000W Communication Strategies for Social Justice and COMM 3070W Gender and Rhetoric. They complete the Liberal Arts and Sciences Core Writing Requirement with two other writing-intensive courses (CORE 1000W The Reflective Woman and CORE 3990W Global Search for Justice).

Four-Year Plan

Three-Year Plan