About the SOC

Anyone paying even the slightest attention will recognize that every field of communication is in the middle of dramatic transformation. Journalists no longer work strictly in print or for a broadcast news  operation, but produce dynamic stories that cross all media -- text, video, audio, photography. Digital tools have changed the way that photographers produce images, the way that filmmakers and  videographers craft dramatic narratives and documentaries, and the ways that audio professionals record, mix and distribute music. The line that once separated advertising and public relations blurs every day; professionals who promote companies, organizations, institutions and political candidates are working to figure the best balance between traditional and newer media for their messages.

Recognizing this, the School of Communications at Webster University is committed to preparing our students to be successful professionals in careers that will extend beyond the middle of the twenty-first century. We blend theory and practice in a manner that few colleges or universities do. In our classrooms, students will find individual attention from talented faculty who have extensive experience in all of our fields. They may work with Emmy-winning documentary makers and journalists, prizewinning photographers and filmmakers, audio faculty with long lists of credits in music recording and doing sound for film and television, award-winning PR and advertising professionals,  scriptwriters of network television series and movies.

In those classes, students often have the opportunity to produce work for professional organizations. Last year, video students contributed footage to a History channel documentary and current audio students are doing work for the soundtrack of a SyFy channel movie. In our internships, students do graphic design or write copy for advertising campaigns, they manage social media efforts of non-profit organizations, they work for broadcast operations in St. Louis,  recording studios in Nashville, prime time network TV series in Los Angeles.

Our students have won regional and national prizes for their journalism and their advertising campaigns and our graduates have gone on to work in special effects on Hollywood's blockbusters, as writers and producers for prime-time television series, as journalists in  major markets, as directors and cinematographers on feature films, as account executives for integrated marketing agencies, as managing editors for news operations.

Beyond the mix of theory and practice and the success our students and graduates have while they're here and for long afterwards, the School of Communications is dedicated to the university's mission to prepare our students as global citizens. Many of our students take advantage of the opportunity to study at one of our international campuses as part of one of the most dynamic study abroad programs at any college or university. Even students who choose not to travel overseas benefit from Webster's international reach. Students in an Introduction to Mass Communications class may find themselves collaborating, via  Skype, email and Facebook on a project with students in the same course at our Thailand campus while students in a video class may find themselves studying with an award-winning videographer on loan to the St. Louis campus from our Geneva campus, and students in an online Media Ethics course may find that they have classmates logging in from Kuwait, China and Switzerland.

In so many ways, the School of Communications at Webster University is a dynamic place, one that nurtures the talents that each of our students brings to the university and supports them at every step on  their progress towards becoming a successful professional, whether  they be a freshman only months from high school graduation, a senior  searching for the internship that will connect him or her to a field  as an important step to moving beyond college, a non-tradtional student returning to college or graduate school after five, ten, or even twenty years away from a classroom, or a recent alum looking to network with other professionals in Hollywood or New York.

I invite you to explore the School more closely. Look at our website. Read the biographies of our faculty. Check out the award-winning work by our students and alum. Visit the campus. Sit in on one of our  classes.

And if you decide that we're the school to prepare you to become a  professional in any of the fields of communications, I am confident you'll share my enthusiasm for the work we do with our students.