Careers of our Graduates
MA Graduates
In general, an MA degree in Communication helps develop expertise and experience in analyzing and improving communication in particular professional and interpersonal settings. Such expertise has applicability in a wide variety of careers. The path followed by each graduate thus depends on the student's own interests, goals, and creativity about opportunities. Some of our graduates begin careers, or change to a new career, as a result of their graduate work. Others use their graduate studies to upgrade their competence and competitiveness in their existing careers.

Graduates of the Department of Communication MA program have pursued careers in human resources, lobbying, college administration, fund-raising, radio programming, executive training, public information, sales, management consulting, public relations, advertising, state agency administration, television production, and internal communication in not-for-profit, governmental, and business organizations. Some have college teaching or advisement positions. Others have gone on to law school, or to work on their doctorates in Communication or Information Sciences.

Also see the list of careers on the undergraduate careers in communication page.

Doctoral Graduates
Communication graduates of the doctoral program have teaching, research, and administrative positions in universities and in industry.

Featured recent graduates:

Alan Hansen
"Complicating the Politics of Diversity: Social Interaction between (ongoing) "Newcomers" and "Established Residents" in a Mill Town." Advisor: Robert E. Sanders.

Current Position: Associate Professor of Communication Studies, Carroll College, Helena, MT.

Tamas Bodor
"The multi-level political communication context of the 2004 U.S. presidential election: an inquiry into the 2004 exit poll error and the spiral of silence".  Advisor: Jennifer Stromer-Galley.

Current Position: Assistant Professor of Media Studies, Division of Communication, University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point.

Paul Denvir
"Physician-patient communication about patients' sexual activities and substance use: information exchange on potentially delicate matters".  Advisor: Anita Pomerantz.

Current Position: Associate Lecturer in Communication, School of English, Media Studies, and Art History, The University of Queensland, Australia.