Communication and Media

Good afternoon from the University of Illinois, Springfield.

Welcome. My name is Catherine Kleeman, I part of the admissions team here at the university.

Before we get into our presentation today, we have a couple housekeeping items to go over so that you're aware. This presentation is being recorded and will be made available for your viewing afterwards. So don't feel like you need to take notes during it. You can get all that later. Within your screen share share, you'll see that there is a closed captioning option in the upper right hand corner. The little box with the CC is how you can control your closed captioning right next to it. Also, you can toggle on and off the chat feature.

If that is distracting to you.

And you don't want to see other chats as well as you can go to a full screen mode if you would like that as well. If you should need to re sync your audio or video during the presentation, just refresh your browser and that should clear up any issues that we that you might have. We would love to hear questions in chat so please feel free to post those throughout. We're going to be taking questions throughout this, this session and at the end for any that need to get cleared up later.

So with that, I want to introduce Amy Kincaid from our Communications and Media program, as well as Andrew Nichol. Thank you so much for joining us today.

Hello.

Thanks for having.

Can everyone hear me OK?

All right. OK. So welcome to our grad week here at UIS. I'm happy to give a little overview of the program today and we are lucky enough to have Andrew with us. So we'll do some introduction here in a little bit and in a little bit.

So we are focused on the school of communication and media and so we would like to welcome you. All right.

Figuring out.

Why it's not advancing my?

I'm trying to. Oh, there they are. Sorry, those slides were not coming up for me. OK. So for the next 30 minutes or so, we'll, like I said, do some quick introductions and then I'll give an overview of the program. We'll talk about some potential areas for funding.

And then Andrew will give us not only an advising perspective but also a graduate student perspective. And we'll have sometimes more questions and answers. But feel free, as Cameron said earlier.

To put questions in the chat and Andrew can answer some maybe if he as as we go or put different links or and feel free to happen Andrew if if we have a question that you feel I need to answer for the group for everyone.

But we'll have time at the end for questions as well. OK, so with that, I am Doctor Amy Kincaid and I am the program lead and a professor in the communication in the School of Communication and Media.

And so I work pretty closely with you as graduate students in terms of making sure you have the right classes and kind of help help you when you work through the program.

And so I'm, I'm happy to be here and happy to answer questions. Now I'm going to let Andrew introduce himself real quick.

Like Doctor Kincaid said, my name is Angel Nickel. I am the undergraduate academic advisor for both communication and our public and nonprofit administration programs, so I work with primarily bachelor's degree seeking students. I'm also in a unique position to where I am actually getting my masters in communication as we speak, So I have a very specific.

Perspective, but I also can help with advising and obviously making sure that you get in touch with your advisor, who will primarily be Doctor Kincaid.

But I can also help with just the other kind of issues in navigating just the experience as a graduate student because I have first hand.

Experience. So yeah, thanks for having me.

Thank you, Andrew. OK. All right. So let's now move into a little bit of an overview of the program.

We have really kind of a more of a broad based program, a generalized program that you should be able to tailor for myriad purposes. OK. So it gives you a degree that prepares you for interpreting and executing communication in all its forms from written to spoken to nonverbal. So course we're going to have a focus on all of that and.

It will also allow you to concentrate on a specific professional goal or enter a wide range of professional possibilities with the flexibility of the program. OK. And so we'll talk a little bit more about what that looks like as we as we move through, OK. But you'll start to see and especially when we start to talk more one-on-one about what your individual needs are.

You can start to see how oh you have to have this class.

This class might be a good class for you to take, considering your interest area and so on and so forth. OK.

With that, you will complete at least 36 credit hours of graduate study. You will have at least three 500 level graduate seminar classes. OK, you may have more, but you will need a minimum of three. You will complete four credit hours of closure, which could be a thesis, a project.

More comprehensive exams. And so we have students do all three of those.

So no, no one is better or worse than the the other. They're just served different kind of purposes in terms of.

What you want to be up to, you know, some people just want to get that, get the comprehensive exams and do it and do that out of the way in a sort of way where you're not maybe stringing together a long project or a long thesis that will make take you a couple semesters or more more to sorry, the dog got that a couple semesters or more to complete. So some people want to do comprehensive exams just for timing, timing purposes, OK.

Some people want to do thesis because they might be thinking about going on for Graduate School, more Graduate School after their masters. Some people do projects because they have something that might coincide with their job that they're doing or a job maybe that they're wanting. And they want to have some sort of concrete sample to, to show potential for employers or to do their own employees. So there's lots of different options there and it's nothing that you have to decide right out of the gate for what what you're doing. I think Andrew's finishing up right now and he's decided, I think we've decided to do the comprehensive exams right because he was just like.

Yes, I think so.

I want to get done this semester so.

Yes.

Which, you know, that's a very real thing and there's nothing wrong with that. So so we can talk about all of that more as you get into the program, OK. You can earn an MA by taking ten classes. So these will be 4 credits each with a total of 40 credit, total credit hours. OK. So that 36 credit hours is just of course work. And then that four credit hours is that of closure. So that's where you get that 36 and 4:40.

Alright, so class formats and modalities.

Our main classes are required classes like the graduate level seminars and like your intro to grad study and your methods class.

Those will all be face to face and on ground for the most part.

We do the 400 level classes that you are also eligible to take and you will need to take some 400 levels.

You can find, we can find different modalities more so that you do still have that traditional face to face on ground. But then there's what we refer to as like a blended class sometimes or a hybrid type of class where some of it's online, some of it's in person or you know it may be fully online, fully online asynchronous class. OK. So we have all three types of those at the 400 levels, so.

So oh, I don't want to do everything face to booth and on ground. Then there are some options there for that and flexibility there for that.

People want to do the everything needs to face give you a little bit of flexibility, OK, we have lots of different faculty expertise. We have great faculty. We have faculty that range from really focusing kind of on the media production side of it.

Thing where others focus more on.

The like the reporting of the media or the media criticism side?

Really taking?

You know, a deeper dive in a deeper look at how media impacts, you know, society and all of that fun stuff. And so we have that kind of side and and the side that might focus a little bit more, been more a little towards journalism in some ways with some of our faculty expertise, anyone kind of swinging over to the other side for a more like interpersonal, intercultural kind of.

Expertise. And so we have faculty in those areas.

So and then we have some generalists in there.

Yeah.

So, so it's a good mix of people with the faculty expertise and that's good in terms of because we get so many different graduate students wanting to do so many different things, you know. So it's good to have kind of a deeper bench in terms of.

Faculty expertise, and I think you get that. Get that in our program. OK, so the program admission.

OK, for admission to the program you'll need a minimum overall undergraduate GPA of 3.0 OK, 2 letters of recommendation, including one from an academic source.

1-2 page personal statement of purpose and then students whose native language is not English must achieve a score of 580 or above on the paper based TOEFL or the equivalent on the computer based or Internet based TOEFL test, OK.

I will say, you know.

We do look at, so if you're maybe right under the 3.0 or something like that, we do, we we look at the letters of recommendation as well as your personal statement to kind of help you know as a balance to that GPA as well. So, so don't completely stress out if you feel like, oh, I'm not quite there, but if you're at the 3.0, then hey, you've at least met that minimum requirement.

OK, but don't think you shouldn't stick it out there, just.

Just in case if you didn't, OK. All right. So some different Oh, did I go. I didn't finish that, did I? Yeah, I did. OK.

Sorry.

So some I did skip one, though. No, I didn't. OK, why am I confusing myself? OK, so potential funding. OK, so often graduate students are interested in how do I pay for this, right? And so.

A lot of people, you know, work at the university in some capacity, like Andrew works at the university. So he gets some funding stuff in in that in that way.

Other people, employers might pay some for it, but at the university specifically, we have some good opportunities. Good.

Assistantships. So we have the Graduate Public Service internship, which is something that you're eligible to apply for if you get into the program and with this internship, you.

Work for some sort of state agency in the Springfield, generally in the Springfield area.

And you will work there so many hours a week and then take classes and then they'll, you know, give you a stipend to help offset the cost of of, you know, tuition and all of that, OK. We also have graduate assistantships and kind of the difference between those and the GPSI is that.

Those happen on campus, mostly on campus, right? So that might be something where you'd be a graduate assistant for a particular school, a particular program.

And so like the School of Communication and Media we have, we have one grad graduate assistant that helps out with the program. And then we have, I think, a couple that help out with the newspaper, the student newspaper. So there's opportunities for that. You know, if you wanted to be specific, like in communication, in communication or in media in that sense, but they're all over campus, there's.

A whole slew of different, different ones, OK.

And then International Student Services is a helpful link to that might give you some for international students to to think about funding because there's different different things that international students will have to different. What should I say, maybe deadlines and so on and so forth that you might have to be aware of, OK.

Alrighty. OK, so now some career options that are out there, and these are really just, you know, a handful of them when they're a myriad. OK, so people go into business, They might do go into education, to health, to athletics, human resources, sales, marketing, public relations, advertising, media, digital media.

I think we have a lot of people that end up going here.

Go up going to the State House and working for.

Doing something political. So maybe they might be doing lobbying or something like that. So, so we have a lot of our graduate students that sometimes go that route. We have a lot of our graduate students that end up in the healthcare, in health somewhere. We have a couple hospitals in the Springfield area and so that's always an option too. So there's lots of different things you can do with a degree in a career in communication, right.

All right. So now I'm just going to quick turn it over to Andrew. So he might if he wants to add anything from a graduate perspective.

Or it add anything to anything I said.

Yeah, thanks, Doctor Kincaid. Like, there's a lot of different ways that like you can be involved. And then also like the different types of funding. Whenever you look at that, I've had a lot of different students who have gone from undergraduate to Graduate School and they've gone into the GPSI program or they've done a graduate assistantship. So those are very viable.

Source for you to obviously get your degree paid for, but then also to get a small stipend as well as some hands on experience. And I think that's incredibly valuable and I'll I know we'll probably add this at the end, but I want to make sure we cover it now. Application deadlines if you are interested in the GPSI program and coming into the fall semester.

In the graduate program, the deadline you have to be fully admitted to your program. So you have to apply to UIS apply to your program.

Once that is fully accepted and evaluated, you'll get that admission decision and then after that.

Your application for the GPSI program can be considered, but you have to be fully applied and admitted for that program by March 15th. So keep that in mind. And I say that as a graduate student who did not the first time, so I want to make sure that you do it as well. But from the actual student perspective, I've had a really great opportunity just to kind of dive in deeper to interpersonal communication.

I am a person who studied a communication undergrad. I started in the mass media side of things and I really did not enjoy that because I didn't want to actually go into radio, which I'm really glad. That was a handful of years ago, so I'm glad I didn't do that now.

But I in undergraduate I started really focusing on the interpersonal aspect and just relationship building and even through my graduate studies I've kind of.

Just gone deeper into that. I know that Doctor Kincaid works a lot with intercultural communication and organizational communication, so I've taken a lot of her classes. I think most of my graduate degree has been with Doctor Kincaid, but just really gotten a good opportunity to dive into that and to really focus on that. And I'm not the only person who does interpersonal. I also know that some people would much rather do the mass media and focus on the media studies, whether you want to go into marketing.

Or journalism. Or maybe you want to go into the study of media. All of those things are very possible and the courses that we have, our seminars and our 400 level courses can really kind of help you dive into that. We have a couple courses like.

Fake news and fact checking. We have a political communication course. We have media criticism, intercultural communication.

We have an interpersonal and an organizational course. We also have a couple different courses.

Like one of them based on exploring like bias and racism. That's a very, I guess, not necessarily racism, but more communicating about race. So there's a lot of courses that students can take.

And really, kinda. You can focus this degree on what you want it to be. So if you've got that in your motivation to know the direction that you want to go.

This degree can kind of can take you there. And between me and my current cohort of students, we've had a lot of students who've gone a lot of different directions. I know one of our current students right now, or one of the students who I was studying with last semester, is now currently the Assistant Direct Sports Information director here at the university, which is a really awesome thing to see. And then I also have a couple of friends who are working in the marketing and public relations realm, so you can really go anywhere.

You can take it wherever you want to.

We can let it take you kind of where it goes.

So that's kind of my perspective. Thank you Doctor Kincaid, we can move on to the question and answer if there are any questions that you want to add to the chat. I put our content information in there, but also we can answer those questions now if you have them. And then maybe we can talk about deadlines, stuff like that or application kind of questions if we have those as well.

Yeah. And I'll add to that just back to that GPSI deadline that Andrew gave you, that March 15th one for if you're an international student, OK, pay attention you need to that's would be good to talk to your international advisor and make sure you explore that link to see what.

Your you know what dead date deadlines are, are for you, for visa stuff, for for different things like that.

Because there's different deadlines and there's different red tape that international students have to go through in that application process for that so.

That's a good point.

I don't see any questions so far. Do you want to talk? Did we talk about the application process?

We talked about reading the letters recommendation and your GPA and things like that I guess. Is there any?

Any thoughts to content of though, like that personal statement that you want to give that might help with writing that?

I I think the with the personal statement is there's a prompt on there and I think it the prompt is you know tell us something about how communication is at work in your life or how you plan to use the degree you know what are you interested in. So that personal statements just really for the committee selection committee to get a better idea of what you're up to and what you want to do. So we can make sure that even though I said we're we are a broad program.

More generalized program. We still want them to be a good fit, and so if you don't, we want it to be good, good classes and a good fit for what you want to do.

Like if you wanted to do something, say I'm trying to think of a different direction somebody might want to go that would be like maybe this program isn't for you. Like if you wanted to, if you want to do something, if you want to do more full on like journalism, that type of stuff, then maybe you need to look at like public affairs reporting, our graduate program, public affairs reporting or something like.

Yeah, it really is.

So I was going to say a sort of plug for another program that is housed in the School of Communication and Media on the graduate side. If you are interested in doing that reporting on the public affairs side, maybe you're very interested in politics, but the like the actual journalism portion of it, Public affairs reporting here at UIS is a really awesome program. It is not your typical, not your typical like 2 year program. I think it's like a year and a half with an internship built into that. So a really awesome opportunity and I believe they will if you're interested.

They are also having a spot during graduate week, so there's a good time for you to get more information on that program as well as.

My contact information and Doctor Kincaids as well as our communication program. You can e-mail them us directly or you can e-mail the the school directly and we can very much get those questions answered or even get you in touch with someone who is doing the thing in the expertise that you're interested in.

It looks like Director Kleeman put that information for the School of Communication and Media in there as well. You'll find the admissions requirements on all those kind of things. You'll also find an overview of the program. You can also look into our faculty and kind of see what we're studying and what we're doing. And then I can also tell you a little bit about University of Illinois Springfield. And if you're not familiar, what we do here in Springfield, IL is what.

And then as far as the application process you just go to, maybe we can if we can get maybe if somebody wants to stick a link in there for the registrar like the page where you would go to.

Apply OK, so you just go to the registrar page and push the apply button and then it's. It will kind of walk you through everything.

It's a pretty easy one. It's UISNEDUR should fly.

Yes, and it's a nice thing too, is it? So now Kind of. It's a one stop shop 2 with if you want to apply for, isn't it? Don't they apply for the assistantships now through?

OK.

You have to fill out a separate application for the GPSI program and I I think also for the graduate citizenships. But you'll have to go through create your account and go through the application portal. But you can also look into your application status as you're as you fill that out, it'll tell you what information that you need or materials that you need to submit still or if you you know have to follow up with your letter's recommendation or things like that. So the it's all kind of house all in the application portal so we can tell you all that information as well as the Office of admission can answer those questions about application status and all those things a little bit more specifically.

When it comes to that.

Yeah and just kind of let you know too about time wise we.

If you once you get your application in, you probably will hear back probably within a week or two just to kind of let you know that that end of that process.

And we only admit in the fall semester.

Correct. Or do we?

No, we admit this spring.

OK, perfect.

We prefer you start in the fall because that the way we have the courses.

The way we have the courses lined up, or you know it, it makes more sense for you from a curriculum standpoint if you start in the fall.

Alright, so plenty of time if you're interested in coming into the program during the fall semester.

Yes.

OK.

I don't see. I don't see any questions.

Thank you.

I don't see any questions either. So I think you are off the hook. Thank you Doctor Kincaid and thank you Mr. Nichol for joining us today. And of course you have their their contact information if you need more information from them or have questions. So thank you very much for joining us today and we will see y'all another time.

Yes, thank you. Bye.

Thank you.