Chance Me (American Stat Comm) + Advice

[StratComm]

Hey all,

I made a last minute(ish) shift in my goals and after talking it over with my current boss, I'm considering going into Strategic Communications. I'm in Washington DC and currently American, which has an Advocacy and Impact concentration, seems great for me. It's possible my work will also pay for 50% of the 1 year masters too. 

I'm curious if anyone is up for chancing me there OR give me some direction for other schools I should apply to (or maybe advice to secure my place there?). Even without it, American is my top school.

 

STATs

1. Male AA URM
2. 26 (at time of application)
3.  Academics: Public Health with a Communications and History Minor
4. GPA: 3.9 (ish), Comms Minor GPA: 4.0, History Minor GPA: 4.0
5. 30 months of communications experience (14 months as a Digital Comms intern, 16 months as a Digital Associate for a National Political Organization)
6. GRE: Verbal 158, Quant: 154, Essay: 4.0
7. Volunteer experience in communications, and on political campaigns, internships at several non-profits
8. Americorps Member, Published short story author and essayist (3 total)

Thank you all!

[DBear]

Are you looking for MA or PhD programs? What are your goals? Academia? Private sector? Gov't? 

What do you want to focus on within strategic communications? 

I think these are more important than your stats

[StratComm]

I'm looking at MA Programs and government or non-profit sector (hence why American interested me!).

My end goal is the interaction between politics and social justice, working either for a senator, a sub committee or an organization like WHO or Amnesty as a press director/Secretary. Leaning towards health in the private sector would be fine too, but also focusing on health in the non-profit sector (rapid response at Human Rights Campaign for example has been a job i've been drooling over).

Basically intersecting the two. i have a wealth of comms experience but i want that degree and knowledge base of Strat Comm to help take me to the next professional level and be a heavier hitter. I strongly believe, esp now, communications is intersectional and you can't discuss health or justice, without politics, etc. Being able to balance those interactions, with the organizational mission in mind (and furthering progressive ideals in this increasing competitive dog-eat-dog world) is important to me.  I've worked and love non-profits and their mission, but I know profit companies have not only a bigger budget, but harder hitters to push out non-profits and overshadow them. I want to be that heavy hitter for non-profits. 

Edited February 13, 2017 by StratComm

[DBear]

I honestly don't know a lot about Comm  so maybe someone can provide suggestions now that pretty much all the pertinent info is available. 

What I can say, though, is that it sounds like Policy programs may also suit your interests. I worked in policy for a good many years and a lot of my friends are in various NGOs and government organizations, a few do what you would like to do, but all of them are policy people - like my friend who did press/ PR work for the IAEA with a MA in non proliferation studies. It seems like with what you want to accomplish, you could go either way but I personally feel like if you gain more content specialization and maybe take some strategic comm along with it. Like your "drool job", I think getting a degree in international development or international law, human rights, conflict management types of policy work would also suit your purpose. Just a thought from someone who was originally not from Comm.

[heyDW]

I think with your stats and interests you could get into a lot of programs, but I'd look closely at degree requirements for programs you're interested in. My MA was heavily geared toward pursuing a career in academia/teaching, and while an MS was an option and you could do an internship instead of a thesis, the coursework was largely based on learning theory and methodology to prepare you for doctoral work. Having said that, at no point did I feel like my MA divorced politics from social justice or issues of inequity.

[DBear]

2 hours ago, heyDW said:

I think with your stats and interests you could get into a lot of programs, but I'd look closely at degree requirements for programs you're interested in. My MA was heavily geared toward pursuing a career in academia/teaching, and while an MS was an option and you could do an internship instead of a thesis, the coursework was largely based on learning theory and methodology to prepare you for doctoral work. Having said that, at no point did I feel like my MA divorced politics from social justice or issues of inequity.

I think that's why my gut was saying this sounds like a policy degree, because what OP MA in policy are mostly terminal, geared toward professional work. My first MA was in environmental policy and we basically did a LOT of coursework with practical courses on skills you'd need to function in an non-profit or gov't organization. Turns out the skills worked well in the private sector as well, but definitely did not prepare me for doctoral work. I'm sure there are Comm MAs that are more professionally geared, but at least while I was doing my research, it seemed like most were like what @heyDW said - geared toward academia. A lot of schools didn't even have a separate Master's track.

[d.grace]

3 hours ago, StratComm said:

I'm looking at MA Programs and government or non-profit sector (hence why American interested me!).

My end goal is the interaction between politics and social justice, working either for a senator, a sub committee or an organization like WHO or Amnesty as a press director/Secretary. Leaning towards health in the private sector would be fine too, but also focusing on health in the non-profit sector (rapid response at Human Rights Campaign for example has been a job i've been drooling over).

Basically intersecting the two. i have a wealth of comms experience but i want that degree and knowledge base of Strat Comm to help take me to the next professional level and be a heavier hitter. I strongly believe, esp now, communications is intersectional and you can't discuss health or justice, without politics, etc. Being able to balance those interactions, with the organizational mission in mind (and furthering progressive ideals in this increasing competitive dog-eat-dog world) is important to me.  I've worked and love non-profits and their mission, but I know profit companies have not only a bigger budget, but harder hitters to push out non-profits and overshadow them. I want to be that heavy hitter for non-profits. 

It looks like we actually have some similar interests. I'll tell you that if you're hoping to apply this cycle, a lot of the deadlines have already passed. 

If you're interested in taking a more political communication route you may want to consider Georgetown for a masters. UT-Austin has a phenom program in rhetoric and language with a lot of big name faculty in political communication. 

If you're thinking more human rights issues you could go into policy, you might also consider UW-Seattle. They have faculty that are pretty diverse in terms of interest, but they all tend to concentrate on political comm, global comm or things like that. 

For health communication, some of it is indicative of area. Purdue has a pretty decent program for both masters and PhD. You might also consider UGA, Kentucky, even Arizona. 

Part of the issue you may have is trying to concentrate you're focus. You should ask yourself if you're more interested in health issues of social activism or the social issues of social activism?