Bachelor in Communication

Overview

Students in the Communication program study a range of human and mediated communication theories and techniques. We focus on understanding audiences, how messages are disseminated, and how these messages help shape cultural identities, including their social, economic and political effects.

Experiential learning

Media Fellows Program

Each year, the NRQ School of Communication selects from a pool of applicants the top 16 incoming freshmen to be a part of the prestigious Media Fellows Program. The fellows partake in real-world projects in a client/agency model, work together to develop and oversee unique research projects and travel domestically and internationally to examine trends in the media industry.

Study Away Semester at Dark Horse Recording in Nashville, Tenn.

Receive twelve transfer credits toward your HPU degree and spend a semester learning the recording arts at Dark Horse Recording, in the actual studios where many of the biggest recording artists in the world record (including artists from Taylor Swift to Matchbox Twenty). Internships are available, too.

Student clubs and organizations

• Lambda Pi Eta

• Public Relations Student Society of America

• Society of Professional Journalists

• High Point Broadcast Society

• Event Management Club

• Sports Management Club

• HPU Radio

• HPU TV

• Game Design Club

• National Sportswriters and Sportscasters Association

• National Association of Black Journalists

What can you do with this major?

• Electronic Media Production: Graduates will be able to apply their skills to a variety of television, radio, internet, film and corporate video jobs.

• Game and Interactive Media Design: Graduates find employment in the commercial game industry, the indie game market and the rapidly expanding market for serious game development, and are equipped to be game journalists, testers, designers, marketers, and writers.

• Journalism: Graduates are employed at newspapers, radio and television stations, and websites.

• Media and Popular Culture Studies: Employers in all fields of media will value the breadth and depth of students’ engagement with media and culture.

• Sports Management: Graduates have positions in marketing and promotions, community relations, facility and operations, compliance, ticketing and sponsorship sales and development.

• Event Management: Students with these experiences land jobs in public, non-profit or private event management/marketing organization, become a sole-proprietor or partner in a small event management company or attend graduate school.

• Sports Communication: Positions in a professional sports organization, sports broadcast station, newspaper sports department or university sports department are popular careers.

• Strategic Communication: Graduates earn jobs as account coordinators, media buyers, assistant account executives, copywriters, public relations specialists, special events coordinators, sports information specialists, and public affairs or public information specialists.

Career Opportunities

High Point alumni are working in advertising and public relations agencies, radio and television stations and are producing corporate and theatrical media throughout the nation. A number of our graduates have gone on to earn Ph.D.’s in communication and other fields, while others have chosen to attend graduate and law school at some of the finest institutions in the country including:

• The Annenberg School at the University of Southern California

• Boston University

• Clemson University

• Georgetown University

• High Point University (M.A. in Strategic Communication)

• Purdue University

• The University of Florida

• The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

• The University of Georgia

Course Requirements

The School of Communication offers the B.A. degree in Communication. To graduate from High Point University with this degree, students must complete the following:

B.A. in Communication

According to ACEJMC accreditation standards, all students must take 72 credits in courses that do not have the “COM” prefix.

In 1924 High Point College opened as a cooperative venture between the Methodist Protestant Church and the City of High Point. The campus consisted of three partially completed buildings, there were nine faculty members, and student enrollment was 122. Today the University has 122 buildings, is attractively landscaped, the full-time faculty numbers nearly 300, and approximately 4,600 students are enrolled in a wide variety of daytime, evening, and summer programs. Much has changed over the years. Yet the mission of High Point University may still be best expressed in the words of its founders more than nine decades ago: “to help us to appreciate and to love our own, to know our needs and opportunities, and to make ourselves more efficient servants of Christ.”