FAQ

JOURN 201 – Introduction to Mass Communication is a four-credit, elementary-level Social Science breadth course and counts as a Communication-B course. The course can be taken in your first semester at UW. J201 is a required course to apply to the School of Journalism & Mass Communication (SJMC).

Course Description: Every aspect of social life — our relationships with friends, family and acquaintances, our democracy and politics, our businesses and economy—are profoundly shaped by communications through media that are experiencing dramatic change. In this course you will acquire conceptual tools to understand how and why society’s mediated communications work the way they do, how they have changed over time, and what they are evolving towards. By the end of the course, you will be a more sophisticated consumer of information and persuasive messages.

The Course Search & Enroll website allows you to search for all the courses being offered for the current and upcoming semester. Keep in mind it is the Office of the Registrar who sets the dates on when a semester courses open for public view and enrollment. You can always find these dates here. For in-depth course descriptions for the current term, please view our Fall 2025 courses list and descriptions.

JOURN 335 – Principles & Practices of Reporting is the first required class for the Multimedia Journalism/Reporting concentration.

JOURN 335 Course Description: Following J202, this class will provide you with a platform to practice the tools of the trade. The readings, lectures, discussions, and assignments are meant to make you a more sophisticated reporter and to improve your writing and journalism production skills while providing you with a sense of purpose in journalism practice. This class is all about smart reporting and writing on deadlines. It is about honing your critical thinking abilities. You will develop your skills in pattern recognition, in finding the behind-the-obvious story, and in going beyond the superficial report. Journalism legalities, ethics, and multimedia/interactive considerations will thread the entire course. We will talk specifically about reporting news in the digital era, such as thinking about journalism as a process as opposed to a product.

JOURN 345 – Principles & Practices of Strategic Communication is the first required class for the Strategic Communication concentration.

JOURN 45 Course Description: This course introduces strategic communication for students interested in advertising, public relations, health communication, social marketing, and political campaigns. It is designed to provide students with a grounding in the basic concepts that strategic communication practitioners use to do their jobs. This course blends theoretical and practical concerns and concepts that pose challenges for strategic communicators. In summary, the course provides students with a basic understanding of the following areas:

• The strategic communication industry, including advertising and public relations firms
• The ethics and regulation of strategic communication
• The role of strategic communication in marketing products, ideas, and people
• Various components of strategic communication campaigns
• The different professional specialties within the field of strategic communication
• The class is centered on the semester-long development of a campaign plan in which student agencies compete with one another to “pitch” for an account.

No – due to the important foundational work covered in both classes, students are not permitted to take JOURN 335 and JOURN 345 in the same semester.

JOURN 176, JOURN 475 and JOURN 676 are “special topics” classes within the SJMC. Courses offered with these numbers are typically new classes focusing on cutting-edge and current topics. For information on the course descriptions for this semester’s JOURN 176, JOURN 475 and JOURN 676 classes, please view our Fall 2025 courses list and descriptions.

Yes! SJMC students are only required to earn one concentration but can plan on earning both concentrations. Keep in mind adding a second concentration can result in potentially staying an additional semester or a summer term to complete the concentration requirements.

SJMC students tend to want to take all their required major courses at UW-Madison with our SJMC faculty. The most common area offered in UW Study Abroad programs is Topics and Advances coursework (JOURN 600 courses).

For a list of some of the most popular UW Study Abroad programs SJMC students participate in as well as other study abroad academic considerations, please see the Study Abroad Office’s Journalism and Mass Communication advising page.

For the full list of degree requirements and specific course numbers, please go to the Undergraduate Guide. To complete JOURN degree requirements, students must complete:

• JOURN 201 – Introduction to Mass Communication
• JOURN 202 – Mass Communication Practices
• JOURN 203 – Information for Communication
• Either JOURN 335 – Principles & Practices of Reporting or JOURN 345 – Principles & Practices of Strategic Communication
• Four credits of Advanced Concepts & Skills coursework (JOURN 400s)
• Eight credits of Perspectives coursework (JOURN 500s)
• Three to four credits of Topics and/or Advancements coursework (JOURN 600s)

Once students have successfully completed JOURN 201 and have been granted admission to the SJMC, it takes as little as three semesters to complete specific JOURN degree requirement courses. Please feel free to meet with an academic advisor to discuss personalized timelines to degree completion.

Students who have an eligible internship may enroll in JOURN 697 – Internship for one credit. J697 is an online class with required coursework outside of the internship. For information on enrollment requirements for JOURN 697, please click here.

JOURN 601 – Colloquium in Professional Communication Careers is a one-credit course which explores a wide variety of post-undergraduate communication career options available in Journalism. Topics related to job hunting, resume writing, and networking are also covered. Focuses on opportunities and challenges in a wide variety of communication fields, from advertising and public relations to radio, newspapers and TV broadcasting. The course is offered each Fall and Spring.

Once a class fills up, our waitlists open. Once the waitlist is full, the class will show as “closed”. If a student already enrolled in a course drops the course during this time period, Course Search & Enroll shows it as having a seat “available”. However, this seat will go to the next person who is already on the waitlist. With this, it may appear that one spot is open in the class, but in reality it is reserved for the first person on the waitlist. That person may not have accepted their spot in the class, which is why it still shows as available.

DARS is your degree audit report system-it tells you what credits you have completed, and what you have left to complete your major and degree requirements.

Run your DARS

New to DARS? Check out these video tutorials and step-by-step instructions:

• DARS for a declared major/certificate
• “What-If” DARS for a major/certificate not declared
• How to read DARS

You can also begin to plan your schedule by adding courses to Degree Planner.

Learn more about degree planner.

Visit the DoIT Help Desk for instructions on how to view your holds and who to contact to resolve them.

Check out the Office of the Registrar’s how-to page for tutorials on enrollment.

Once students are offered and accept admission to the SJMC, they will be sent a major declaration form where they will rank their preferred sections of JOURN 202 and JOURN 203. We process the enrollment permissions in the order upon which we receive submissions. Students will be notified via email which sections they are administratively granted permission to enroll in.

No, students must drop the section of the JOURN class they do not want and attempt to enroll in the section they do want. Students cannot be enrolled in multiple sections of the same class. If the discussion section you want is full, then you will have to get added to the waitlist.

Although students have the functionality in Course Search & Enroll to enroll in multiple JOURN 400 courses, we do not advise keeping more than one in a semester. JOURN 400 courses are skills-based courses which often involve a significant amount of hours outside of classes for client meetings and group assignments. If you have any questions about your specific schedule and the 400-level class you are planning to enroll in, please meet with an academic advisor.

SJMC classes in the areas of Advanced Concepts & Skills (JOURN 400s), Perspectives (JOURN 500s) and Topics and/or Advances (JOURN 600s) are often high-demand courses that often have waitlists. As space becomes available, graduating seniors will have preference.

If you are offered a spot off the waitlist, you will receive an automated email instructing you to enroll in the course within 48 hours of receiving the email.
Questions about the general use of a waitlist should be referred to the Enrollment Helpline in the Office of the Registrar.

All deadline and timeline information can be found on the Office of the Registrar’s website.

Students must apply for graduation via their Student Center to indicate that they are nearing completion of their degree. See the Office of the Registrar’s website for information and instructions about this process. In addition, we advise students to do the following:

• Look at your DARS report via MyUW. Read it over carefully to find deficiencies-if you are meeting all requirements to graduate, everything will be GREEN. Be aware that each major (if you have more than one) will have its own DARS report.
  • Keep in mind that your DARS is showing in-progress classes as classes you will keep and pass. If you do not pass your classes, or get the GPA you need, this could influence your graduation date.
• Check to make sure your major(s) is/are declared correctly. That is, make sure you have officially added and/or dropped majors so that the list of majors on record is exactly what you want for graduation. If not, go to the individual departments to add or drop a major. This also applies if you have declared Honors in the Liberal Arts (L&S students) or Honors in the Major.
• Talk to an advisor about questions you have about meeting requirements.

Journalism is a degree, not technically a major. Diplomas only show the name of the degree, which for SJMC students is either a Journalism Bachelor of Arts or a Journalism Bachelor of Science. Additional majors and certificates will be listed on your official transcripts (which is what most employers require when verifying your educational information).

Yes! Please review the graduation checklist on the UW Commencement website.