This MA Professional Track is geared toward students who are coming to Journalism from another field of study or for additional professional experience. This degree requires 30 hours of coursework and a professional internship. Some of the internships past students completed included work with The Texas Tribune, The Texas Observer, Sports Illustrated, Texas Monthly, Spectrum News, McGregor Mirror, The Austin Chronicle, The Briscoe Center, The Horn FM, The Austin Monitor and AARP.com, among others.
The MA Pro Track is designed for three types of students:
- Students who have little journalistic background but want to switch careers entirely, such as from engineering, political science, or business to journalism.
- Students who already have an undergraduate journalism degree and/or professional experience, who want to expand and focus their abilities, or switch career paths within journalism, for example, from daily journalism to foreign correspondence, or from writing to visual storytelling.
- Students with journalism experience in non-U.S. media systems seeking to develop an understanding of the purpose, principles, and process of journalism in the U.S.
Coursework
The coursework (30 semester credit hours) includes ample experiential opportunity to report and produce stories with intense-yet-supportive editing, with an emphasis on applying accountability journalism principles regardless of beat or interest. The program is designed as a full-time experience during the two long semesters, followed by a summer internship at a professional media outlet.
All students take a set of 6 required courses (18 semester credit hours):
- Reporting Texas I
- Reporting Texas II
- Visual Journalism
- Media Law
- Reporting with Data
- Business of News
All students take a total of 12 semester credit hours through elective courses to help them become an expert in a medium and/or specialty. At least three hours of credit are obtained through an internship.