Program Description
The Communication Department features the integration of theories and criticism with the essential skills for media production, professional engagement, and meaningful research. Graduates will be able to make a positive, professional, and important contribution in Media Environments, Digital Journalism, Organizational Contexts, Advertising, Public Relations, and Communication and Media Studies. Students will study, research and analyze the perspectives that will lead to their becoming inclusive, ethical, and effective leaders and participants in global and local communities. They will acquire skills in critical analysis, speaking, writing, and visual presentations across all media. They will learn about the changing world of today’s media as well as the long history of the relationship between communication, self, and society and they will be prepared for a broad array of careers. All graduates must complete 13 core cores in communication and elect one of two options: Communication, Media Production Option, B.A. emphasizing digital journalism that converges print, audio, visual, and video; Communication, Professional, Public and Organizational Communication Option, B.A. that converges the study of Advertising, Public Relations and Organizational Communication.
Student Learning Outcomes
Students graduating with a B.A. in Communication from Cal State East Bay will be able to:
- Create, analyze, edit, and respond to written, spoken, and visual messages in multiple formats and contexts.
- Research and evaluate effective communication including design and production techniques and quantitative, qualitative, and critical inquiry.
- Effectively communicate as leaders and participants in collaborative and individual contexts involving divergent ideas, conflicts, and relationships across cultural and gender differences.
- Explain and illustrate the construction and maintenance of shared communities that influence and are influenced by communication using critical, cultural, racial, socio-political, gender and justice perspectives.
- Explain and illustrate concepts of ethical and democratic leadership applying major communication perspectives, including rhetorical and discursive processes, purposes, and relevant media.
- Explain and illustrate the role identity plays in communication within global and local contexts and in negotiating paradoxes of participation.
Career Opportunities
Communication skills are essential in both work and social settings. Recruiters and placement officers for all types of organizations and positions rank oral and written communication skills at the very top of the list. The department’s graduates have entered the following careers:
- Advertising Executive
- Business Executive
- Communication Specialist
- Consultant
- Copy Editor
- Copywriter
- Corporate Communications Director
- Corporate Communicator
- Critic
- Customer Service Representative
- Debate Speech Coach
- Employee Relations Representative
- Film Editor
- Graphic Artist
- Human Resource Administrator
- Impression Management Specialist
- Interviewer
- Journalist
- Media Consultant
- Media Specialist
- News Director
- Newscaster
- News Writer
- Photojournalist
- Professor
- Public Information Specialist
- Public Relations Representative
- Publications
- Radio Programmer
- Sales Representative
- Specification Writer
- Talk Show Host
- Teacher
- Technical Writer
- Television Producer
- Trainer
- Writer
Features
The Communication Department is honored and responsible for:
The Pioneer, the University’s weekly student newspaper, currently distributed on our campus and to 150 stands in 7 surrounding communities, from Fremont to San Lorenzo including 5 BART stations as well globally through The Pioneer Online http://www.thepioneeronline.com/
Pioneer Web TV http://pioneerwebvideo.com/. Students gain experience working in a professional television and film studio producing the weekly Pioneer Web TV News Show and increasingly a number of pilot shows.
Pioneer Web Radio. http://www.pioneerwebtv.com/Pioneer_Web_TV/Podcast.html. Students gain professional experience with an Internet radio start-up and providing the campus communities with news, event updates, special profiles and web-streaming for concerts.
Pioneer Advertising Agency. Students gain experience working in and studying an actual Advertising Agency. They sell Ads for the Pioneer Newspaper, design and implement strategies to sell ads for The Pioneer On-line, and commercials for Pioneer Web TV.
The Communication Lab. The department sponsors this Communication Laboratory which is open to the campus community that provides communication-related support services. Upper division Communication majors and graduate students serve as tutors who help students research, organize, outline, and deliver oral presentations. The department also offers campus internship programs for credit, and each year awards a number of scholarships to Communication majors. Junior, senior and graduate students are trained to be tutors to all students enrolled in the G.E. required course in Public Speaking. Communication Tutors assist students in the preparation and presentation of public speeches in a supportive environment.
The department has affiliations with the National Communication Association, Association of Schools of Journalism and Mass Communication, the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication, the California Newspaper Publishers Association, and the California Intercollegiate Press Association. The department also sponsors a campus chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists and the Public Relations Student Society of America.
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