University of Maryland College Park Bachelor Degree Program in Journalism: Multi-Platform
University & College Info June 7, 2013For students pursuing a career in journalism, reporting the news of interest on a national scale, there are few programs that can provide opportunities to join a major network as the University of Maryland at College Park bachelor degree program in multi-platform journalism. The journalist students studying at the Phillip Merrill College of Journalism have been major influences in creating some of the world’s best news organizations.
UMD News in Multi-Platform Journalism and Reporting
Among the journalists is Carl Sessions Stepp, who helped create USA Today as the national editor. In addition to teaching at the college, he contributes regularly to the college’s American Journalism Review. Occupying the Knight’s Chair is Haynes Johnson, a best-selling author, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and national television commentator. Carnegie Visiting Professor Deborah Nelson is also a Pulitzer Prize winner, who joined the faculty after working for the Los Angeles Times as an investigations editor of the Washington bureau. Ira Chinoy formerly worked for the Washington Post as a computer assisted reporting director. He is a pioneer in the techniques of computer assisted reporting and a two time Pulitzer Prize winner.
As students are near the end of their studies, they enter the world of news reporting. They spend a full semester at a college operated news bureau, The Capital News Service. Located in Washington, at the National Press Building, the Capital News Service clientèle includes fifteen Maryland and Washington D.C. newspapers, including the Washington Post and the Baltimore Sun.
Introduced in 1990, the program has a fairly youthful, but highly successful history. Graduating students have landed full-time reporting jobs with some of the highest rated news organizations in the United States, such as The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Baltimore Sun and CNN.
Plans and Activities for UMD Students
Journalism students will learn how to report across the multi-media platforms of print, video, mobile and digital communications. They are taught the basics of news reporting, along with the practical applications of good news reporting, such as finding sources and working an individual beat.
The classes are designed to cover a wide range of concepts and skills. Along with reporting and news writing, courses are designed around ethics and media law, feature writing, sports journalism, graphics, photo journalism, computer-assisted reporting, advanced interactive story-telling and the business of news.
Accredited journalism programs require students to successfully complete approximately two-thirds of their course work in areas outside journalism and communications. A journalism student must have a minimum of 122 credits to graduate. Of these, 42 must be in journalism and a minimum of 65 in liberal arts designated courses. The University of Maryland at College Park has certainly created a program that challenges students intellectually, while also focusing their careers in a positive manner—that is towards the work force following graduation (or after further development in a master’s degree program). Why not reach your full potential by working with the UMD College and expanding your horizons beyond writing? An exciting career in journalism may be your next step!
