Required Credit Hours and Courses for a Major

All students working for a bachelor's degree at Drake must complete the Drake Curriculum (Areas of Inquiry). A minimum of 124 total credit hours are required to graduate, including 31 to 37 credit hours in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication(SJMC). All SJMC majors must successfully complete JMC 30 Communications in Society, JMC 40 Pre-Professional Workshop, JMC 54 News and Reporting Principles, JMC 59 Introduction to Visual Communications, JMC 66 Race, Ethnicity and Media (JMC 66 required of students entering Drake after Summer 2003), and JMC 104 Communications Law and Ethics. A minimum of 65 credit hours must be taken in Arts and Sciences course work and must include Economics 1, Political Science 1 and Sociology 1. 40 credit hours must be in upper division courses numbered 100 or above.

Area of Concentration: In addition the JMC graduate must have completed a 21-credit-hour block of non-JMC courses approved by the adviser and dean. This concentration, taken in a single department or as a unified area of concentration crossing departmental lines, usually is one particularly appropriate to the student's major or otherwise of special interest. At least 12 credit hours in the concentration must be taken in courses numbered 100 and above. Courses taken to satisfy other graduation requirements also may count toward this requirement.

Required Courses

JMC 123 Public Relations Copywriting
JMC 131 Public Relations Collateral Materials
JMC 135 Public Relations Principles
JMC 136 Public Relations Research
JMC 143 Publicity
JMC 144 PR Management
JMC 146 Public Relations Campaign Strategy

ECON 2
PSY 1
MKTG 101
MGMT 110

See the Forms/Handbooks page for downloadable checksheets!

Academic Preparation
No specific courses are required; however, students are encouraged to take journalism and writing courses while in high school.