(Banner of NDT, click picture for site)
Students were encouraged to come to Graduate School Info Sessions hosted by Dr. Bsumeck, the SCOM graduate school, and the JMU PRSSA chapter this past week. Students and faculty were able to openly discuss some questions and concerns about graduate school. The JMU SCOM professors also advised students on how to apply and gave different tips for an easier transition into grad school.
(Left to Right – Dr. Britt, Dr. Carmack, Dr. Woo, Dr. Bsumeck and students during the session)
Some questions that were covered included:
Read more Is graduate school right for you? Tips from JMU SCOM Faculty members.
The month of February seems to fly by! A snow storm finally hit the city and it is all white around Harrison Hall. Yet, this snow storm could not stop people around SCOM from being actively involved with the world outside of the school.
Dr. Tim Ball was selected as one of only 24 faculty members from across the US named to the Student-Learning Outcomes in Communication Project sponsored by National Communication Association.
According to the NCA website, “NCA recently received a grant from the Lumina Foundation to conduct a faculty-driven student learning outcomes project for the Communication major…The goals of the project are to productively support curriculum planning and improvement within the Communication discipline, and to help position Communication centrally in institutions’ general education curriculum development efforts.”
Dr. Ball has been a faculty member at JMU since 1998. He has served as the GCOM Basic Course Director in the General Education Program since 2003. Congratulations, Dr. Ball!!
Read more Snowy February, but SCOM Stays Engaged in the World
SCOM Graduate Program hosts an information session for students who want to know more about graduate school next Tuesday, Feb. 18. Students who are interested can attend one of the two sessions: 12:30 p.m. – 1:45 p.m.or 2:00 p.m. – 3:15 p.m.
According to a recent Georgetown University study, communication graduates with advanced degrees (a masters or PhD) will earn about $10,000 more per year by mid-career than graduates without advanced degrees. http://ncablog.org/2013/06/05/whats-a-comm-major-worth/. Here is an excerpt from the article.
COMM majors who are recent college graduates command median earnings of about $33,000. This is higher than Humanities and Liberal Arts majors ($30K) and equal to Law and Public Policy majors ($33K), but lower than Engineering majors ($54K) and Business majors ($39K). Graduate degree holders in COMM have median earnings of $64,000, ahead of majors in the Arts, Education, Recreation, and Psychology & Social Work.
For COMM, the unemployment rates are 7.8% for recent college graduates, 6.0% for experienced college graduates, and 4.2% for graduate degree holders. Recent college graduates in the Humanities and Liberal Arts face a 9.0% unemployment rate while those in Psychology & Social Work are looking at an 8.8% rate, and those in Social Science are facing a 10.3% unemployment rate. Read more Wondering what comes after graduation? Is graduate school right for you?
Dr. Carlos Alemán is an associate professor at the School of Communication Studies, and one of only eight professors in the university with an appointment as a JMU Professor in Residence (PIR) http://www.jmu.edu/pir/about.html. The PIR program is sponsored by the Office of the Special Assistant to the President at JMU in order to promote educational attainment and college aspirations of Virginia high school students.
Through his PIR appointment at Thomas Harrison Middle School, Dr. Alemán is able to develop and support outreach programs and activities that focus on student populations that have historically lacked opportunities for attending colleges. Once day, while stopping for a cup of coffee, he met a local high school teacher and a community organizer who were just getting started with a brand new outreach organization called the Shenandoah Valley Scholars Latino Initiative (in short: SV-SLI). Three months later, Dr. Alemán was invited to the SV-SLI Board of Directors, and began serving as the SV-SLI University Coordinator of Mentoring and Academic Programs.
