Communication, BA

Program Description

The Bachelor of Arts in Communication provides a thoroughly integrated yet individual degree program that prepares students for communication careers in business, government, and public sectors. In addition, the program provides a foundation for graduates who wish to pursue advanced degrees in the humanities, social sciences, business, and law. Through their coursework and extracurricular experiences, Communication majors develop a set of skills in oral, written, and visual communication that enables them to research, design, present, and evaluate messages across diverse contexts and from a variety of platforms, including social media and digital communication technology.

Students choose from one of four emphasis areas: Health Communication; Human Communication; Strategic Communication; and Media and Technology Studies. These emphasis areas offer the flexibility to accommodate each student’s professional objectives.

The Health Communication Emphasis Area prepares students with the conceptual and applied foundations for success in a field that examines communication in health promotion and health care. This emphasis area allows students to explore health communication across the domains of patient-provider communication, campaigns and interventions, communication technologies, health inequalities and health systems locally and around the world. Students in this emphasis area are prepared to understand the challenges and opportunities in communicating health information and behavior.

The Human Communication Emphasis Area allows students to engage across the broad collection of theoretical and practical content offered by the department curriculum in the areas of health communication, strategic communication, media and technology studies, and other courses of interest.

The Strategic Communication Emphasis Area prepares students to explore organizational-stakeholder relationships through various methods, theories and topical areas. The ethical practice of building relationships across organizations and stakeholders is examined as students explore best practices grounded in theory and essential in a global society. This emphasis area allows students to study and employ practices that are meant to persuade and inform across various publics, understanding on how decision-making occurs and the impact these relationships have on the entities involved.

The Media and Technology Studies Emphasis Area engages students in research, theory, and application of mass communication theory, media history, technologies, new media, culture and forms of inquiry that expand and enhance a student’s ability to navigate and be successful in a dynamic and evolving global society.

Change of Major into Communication

The Department of Communication accepts change-of-major students in fall, spring and summer terms. Current Clemson students interested in changing their major or adding a Communication major must meet specific criteria to be eligible:

• Students must have a minimum of a 2.8 Clemson GPA
• Students must have completed a minimum of 12 credit hours at Clemson or elsewhere.
• Students must have completed the following courses:
  • COMM 1010 - Communication Academic and Professional Development I  
  • COMM 2010 - Introduction to Communication Studies  with a grade of C or higher

Change of Major forms are only accepted in the last week of each semester in December, May, and August.

Program Requirements