What Can I Do With a Communication Studies Major?

The field of Communication Studies is a wide-ranging field that offers us insight into how individuals, organizations, cultures, and institutions create and respond to messages and how these messages shape the world around us. As such, your degree in communication will give you the foundation to work both critically and effectively in a number of fields, including, to name just a few, the health industry, business, education, law and politics, and non-profit sectors.

Courses to Accomplish Your Career Goals

The major in Communication Studies at USF reflects the range and depth of these possibilities. By taking the five foundational courses, we ask that you first get a sense of the range of different areas studied and practiced by communication scholars.  At the upper division level, students are given a choice of a wide variety of classes so that they may tailor the major to their interests and prepare for life after USF.  For some students this freedom is welcome; it allows students to craft a coherent course of study, ensuring that the classes they take are ones that will speak to their current interests and help them pursue the career they want after school. For other students, the range of upper division courses (from Communication and Aging to Rhetoric of Law) might seem overwhelming.

To help you choose upper division courses that will help you accomplish your goals, the faculty has created this handout to offer suggestions about which upper division courses you might take according to the career or field you believe you might enter after graduation. This is meant only as a guide. You should work with your advisor to choose the course of study that fits you best. We also suggest that all students take COMS 496: Internship at some point in their career.

  • PR Principles & Practices
  • PR Law & Ethics
  • PR Writing
  • Rhetorical Criticism
  • Nonverbal Comm.
  • Persuasion & Social Influence
  • Comm. for Justice & Social Change
  • Geographies of Comm.
  • Ethnography of Comm.
  • Interpersonal Comm.
  • Intercultural Comm.
  • Asian Amer. Culture & Comm.
  • Rhetorical Criticism
  • Nonverbal Comm.
  • Comm. for Justice & Social Change
  • Ethnography of Comm.
  • Comm., Disability & Social Justice
  • Interpersonal Comm.
  • Dark Side Interpersonal/Family Comm.
  • Family Comm.
  • Intercultural Comm.
  • Asian Amer. Culture & Comm.
  • Nonverbal Comm.
  • Health Comm.
  • Comm. & Aging
  • Interpersonal Comm.
  • Asian Amer. Culture & Comm.
  • PR Principles & Practices
  • PR Writing
  • PR Law & Ethics
  • PR Campaigns
  • Rhetoric & Citizenship
  • Rhetoric of Social Movements
  • Rhetoric of Law
  • Rhetoric of Sex, Gender, Sexuality
  • Health Comm.
  • Persuasion & Social Influence
  • Comm. for Justice & Social Change
  • Geographies of Comm.
  • Ethnography of Comm.
  • Comm., Disability & Social Justice
  • Interpersonal Comm.
  • Intercultural Comm.
  • Asian Amer. Culture & Comm.
  • PR Principles & Practice
  • PR Law & Ethics
  • PR Writing
  • PR Campaigns
  • Rhetorical Criticism
  • Persuasion & Social Influence
  • Interpersonal Comm.
  • Dark Side Interpersonal/Family Comm.
  • Intercultural Comm.
  • Health Comm.
  • Persuasion & Social Influence
  • Ethnography of Comm.
  • Comm. & Aging
  • Message Design & Health
  • Comm., Disability & Social Justice
  • Intercultural Comm.
  • Asian Amer. Culture & Comm.
  • PR Law & Ethics
  • Rhetorical Criticism
  • Rhetoric & Citizenship
  • Rhetoric of Social Movements
  • Rhetoric of Law
  • Persuasion & Social Influence
  • Comm. for Justice & Social Change
  • Geographies of Comm.
  • Rhetorical History of the U.S.

Graduate Work In

  • Rhetoric or Cultural Studies
  • Interpersonal Communication
  • Ethnic Studies
  • Intercultural Studies
  • Women's Studies
  • Gender & Sexuality Studies