Advice on Comm Programs

[GreenEyedTrombonist]

Hey all!

So, I'm pretty sure this app season is a wash for me. One of the things I've discovered, though, is that many Comm programs seem to have programs that fit my interest. Coming from an anthropology background, I'm not super sure how to go about finding these programs.

So, if you know of any programs that relate to my interests (digital communication, geek culture, gaming culture, etc) or a place that I could find a list of potential programs, please post below and let me know! 

Thanks so much!

[DBear]

Hey! I really love those topics - 

I know what it feels like coming from a different field - The best advice I got was to look for journal articles in my topic of interest that really resonated with me - then look at who wrote them and where the teach/ where they were trained. Similarly, if you can find a journal that seems to publish lots of articles that interest you, look at the the people on the editorial board. If you're currently enrolled in school, your school library should give you access to a lot of journals for free, if not, you can plug in your interests in Google Scholar and see what that gets you. 

Honestly, this method got me a few names, but I didn't want to miss out on anything so I started with the phds.org list of Communication programs and just looked at EVERY single school. In the process, I did see a few faculty that did geek culture and stuff - The rankings on phds.org may not be so insightful, but I used that because the list of schools on NCA was too long and I just need a manageable sample to start with. 

Another thing that helped me around late November was looking at the schools everyone here was applying to or talking about. I think if you start your search with too many specific criteria, you may end up not finding anything so I'd suggest casting a wider net at this point and working your way down. I feel like UC San Diego would probably suit your interests along with U Colorado - Boulder. 

Also, what I did that helped me a lot was making a list of schools that did NOT interest me. I found that I ended up looking at the same website multiple times in some cases (especially for well-known schools) because I forgot that I already looked and decided against them. 

[kirbs005]

I applied under the broad spectrum of "Pop culture studies," with a focus on science fiction and sports, specifically focusing on rhetoric/rhetorical criticism, so take my suggestions with that in mind.

One of the best fits I found was University of Texas - Austin's Communication Studies program. I'm visiting in a couple weekends so I'll be able to speak to it more once I talk with some professors.

Some other PhD programs you might want to look at: WRAC at Michigan State, there's a professor doing some interesting internet studies stuff at UW Madison, UGA has some folks who do some pop culture studies stuff, Nebraska at Lincoln has a professor who looks into sports, but seems to be willing to work with a wider range, Penn State also has some promise in those fields. 

But I agree with @DBear, look at some articles, and look at Professor's research interests listed on program websites. That's how I found most of the professors I'm looking at.

Have you looked at the PCA/ACA website/group at all? I haven't gotten a membership yet since I'm not currently a student but plan on joining once I'm attending. http://pcaaca.org/

Edited February 12, 2017 by kirbs005

[DBear]

5 minutes ago, kirbs005 said:

Have you looked at the PCA/ACA website/group at all? I haven't gotten a membership yet since I'm not currently a student but plan on joining once I'm attending. http://pcaaca.org/

oOOh - I didn't even know this existed, looks like fun - I love how much there is to learn from this forum!

[av2010]

I've found that there are no websites that completely capture exactly what every program is doing.  Part of what I did was just taking the time to go through each school listed on NCA's doctoral program guide and take a quick look at their website.  Yes, there are many schools but it only takes a couple of minutes each to determine if they have anything close to the domain you're interested in.  Once you get that list, then dig a little deeper and see exactly what they offer in terms of faculty research and coursework.  It's time-consuming but through that methodology I was able to create a larger list of programs that were meeting my needs, and then through conversations with grad directors was able to narrow that down to apply to just 3 schools of which I knew I'd be a good fit, and they would be a good fit for me as well.

[The Shade King]

I would contact programs and faculty of interest folks even if u think it might not be a fit to gauge their interests. Having no background myself I kind of tried to do that and sometimes it works other times it wasn't successful. 

But based on what little I know about  Comm programs I think you might have fit with  U of Michigan, Minnesota, maybe U Mass Amherst,  UNC Chapel Hill, Madison, Iowa, UT Austin American studies folks are very very nice I would study that program to see if you have any POI's, BU has a new emerging Media PhD and Maryland Amst has a professor who is into digital stuff I think u should check him out.  I know folks love Browns Media program as well. 

[hnm1231]

I had to dig deep in my emails to remember this professor's name but I found her! I contacted Dr. Massanari briefly about UIC's program but seeing as I don't have an MA I was unable to apply. Her interests seem to correlate well with yours though  Not sure if you already applied here or not... sorry if this is old news!

[E-P]

I realize that this was posted nearly a year ago, but I figure that my approach might help people who are (like me) searching the forum history and come to this.

I also have a fairly wide array of interests, and even within my research area, I could be interested in both the policy and the ethnographic aspects.  So this is what I did.  In a Google sheet, I:

• I made a list of all the programs listed in the NCA doctoral guide
• Filled out the information for each program (which degree I would get if I went there, where it was, application cost, etc.)
• Investigated each program for its ranking, 
• Created separate categories for the social aspects that are important to me (cost of living, closeness to existing social support, gun politics of the state, hours to graduation, etc.), filled in the rankings accordingly
• Used a complicated Excel formula to give me a single numeric score

Then I looked at the top 15 to determine which ones I'd actually want to go to.  For example, USC has a great program, but I don't want to live in California.

I ended up applying to 4....mostly because I didn't want to pay $29 a pop for the privilege of having ETS email my test scores out.

If folks would be interested in a similar spreadsheet, I could easily create a template in Google Drive that folks could copy for their own use.  It's a quantitative way to analyze both the quantitative and qualitative aspects of the devision

 

- EP