Program or Department:	College of Journalism and Mass Communication
Type:	Public
Location:	Lincoln, NE
Undergrads:	950
Graduate program:	Yes
Website:	http://www.unl.edu

The primary mission of the College of Journalism and Mass Communications is to graduate highly competitive young professionals who have acquired communication and critical thinking skills appropriate to the practice of journalism and strategic communications: writing, editing, oral presentation and design in print, broadcast and interactive media. Because a viable career in the media professions requires graduates to understand the changes in society that make differences in people's lives, journalism and mass communications education includes a fusion with the liberal arts and sciences at UNL. The college's mission dictates a high priority role for excellent undergraduate teaching in the three sequences: advertising, broadcasting, and news-editorial.

The advertising sequence prepares students for careers in a wide variety of communication-related areas. Recent graduates have been placed in more than 20 states and several other countries in diverse advertising careers such as retail and corporate advertising and marketing, media sales, brand management, media planning, account management, research, public relations, media relations, special event planning, Internet communications, copywriting and layout and design.

The broadcasting sequence offers courses leading to a wide variety of careers in the telecommunications industry. Building on a solid base of instruction in radio and television broadcasting, the sequence has broadened its curriculum in response to advancing technology and emerging new electronic media. The sequence offers courses in news-gathering and dissemination, sports reporting, videography, sales, management, programming and other specializations including the use of audio and video on the Internet and the World Wide Web. Courses are designed to develop both a comprehensive understanding of theoretical principles and professional skills. Most courses involve extensive practical laboratory work in addition to classroom lectures and discussions.

If you study news-editorial journalism at UNL, you’ll learn how to write, report, edit, take pictures and design graphics for newspapers and magazines - and you'll learn how to transfer those skills to online and new media publications.

Here's how and why it works:

Classes are hands-on. We don't just teach you about journalism. We teach you how to do journalism. That includes one semester working on NewsNetNebraska, the college's online publication.

Our faculty all have a lot of professional experience. They know journalism up close and personal.

News-ed graduates get jobs at newspapers, magazines and online publications.

We help you get a summer internship that will give you three solid months of practical experience at papers large and small, in Nebraska and across the nation.

Our students regularly place among the top 10 in the national Hearst writing competition and photo competition, and many take top honors in the Society of Professional Journalists and Professional News Photographers' contests.

Compiled by Heather Devane, with permission from University of Nebraska at Lincoln.