A new structure for UCLA’s communication studies department reflects rapidly changing technologies as well as an effort to help students move more quickly toward graduation.
Students will now be required to take fewer upper division classes to complete the major. Lower division requirements will be unchanged, though Communications 101 will no longer be mandatory.
Areas of concentration, meanwhile, have expanded from two to four.
Students will no longer be required to declare an area of concentration before entering the major.
UCLA has also added a practicum requirement to the major. This course will allow students to apply skills learned in core classes to different areas of communications.
Classes will more strongly emphasize evolving areas of technology such as social networking, said Tim Groeling, chair of the communication studies department.
“New media” has been added as an area of concentration, for example.
Groeling’s class on political communication includes a video-editing project to help students become more familiar with electoral campaigning by creating their own commercials, he said.
“This will apply as both a practical and core requirement,” Groeling said.
Old requirements had been built up over time. Now, the department is working to take more comprehensive steps forward, Groeling said.
“We have already added new classes in the past, and now we are redoing the curriculum to catch up with technological changes within communications,” he added.
The changes in requirements are also in line with the Challenge 45 initiative, which reduces the number of units required by different majors for graduation.
This also ensures the major is not too demanding for students, allowing for more timely graduations, said Raymond Knapp, chair of the Faculty Executive Committee.
The restructuring will pose a minimal cost to the department because no new classes are technically being added to the curriculum, Groeling said.
Evangeline Ignacio is a third-year student in the communication studies department. She said she did not find the old set of requirements limiting, because she had had the freedom to take the classes of her choice.
In addition to new media, the other new area of concentration, political and legal communications, reflects an effort to modernize the course of study. Previously, students could only choose from interpersonal communications and mass communications.
Updating the curriculum to reflect changes in new media such as social networking is a good idea, Ignacio said.
She also appreciated that declaring a concentration will no longer be mandatory. The shift will help students explore new areas without having to commit to a specific field when they enter the major, she said.
Enrolled students can either stick to the old requirements or switch to the new system, Groeling said.
Ignacio said she will need to see how far she is in the old system and how far she would be in the new system to decide whether or not she will make the switch.
“And for that, I will need details from the Department of Communication Studies that I have not yet received,” she said.
Second-year student Kaitlyn Williams, who is considering majoring in communications, said she hopes the new structure will help her pursue a career as a film publicist.
“The concentrations offered will be useful when students apply for jobs. They will have an advantage compared to applicants who do not have exposure to new fields like social media,” she said.