Your passion is telling stories. You want to meet fascinating people, cover major events and produce content that makes a difference.
As a journalism student, you’ll learn to gather information, conduct interviews and produce compelling journalism across multiple media platforms, while upholding the very highest professional and ethical standards.
You’ll master the technology and journalistic skills to produce videos, audio, text, photography and graphics for mobile platforms, the web, social media, television, podcasts, radio and print. And you'll experiment with and adopt new ideas of journalism as they emerge.
Our alumni have recently won Pulitzer prizes, Murrow and Peabody awards, among other honors, and are in the ranks of the country’s top reporters, broadcasters and news-media innovators.
Undergraduate Opportunities
Journalism is a craft learned best by doing, so your education will be grounded in hands-on experience. You will learn narrative writing and the latest digital tools in class and put them to use the next day at our media outlets: a state-of-the-art multi-platform Media Innovation Center, a radio station, CU News Corps, and news and sports TV broadcasts.
Our students frequently win Emmy awards and prizes in national student media contests. They intern at local newspapers and news sites, magazines, national broadcast networks, websites and social media companies.
As a journalism student, you will be required to earn a secondary area of study, the equivalent of a minor, in a separate subject area of your choosing, allowing you to specialize in the topics you wish to cover as a journalist.
Journalism Minor
Students who are majoring in another discipline may pursue a minor in journalism. The minor offers a solid foundation in news-media literacy and analysis, as well as reporting and writing, while allowing flexibility to pursue a range of additional courses in multimedia storytelling, journalism studies and more. 18 credit hours (six courses) are required.
Sports Media Minor
Beginning fall of 2019, CU Boulder undergraduates, regardless of college, school or major, will be able to earn a minor that complements their major degree with a set of sports-related courses.
International Media Certificate
This undergraduate certificate program is designed to give students a strong conceptual understanding of both media and international politics. The program will prepare you for job opportunities emerging within the fields of news, global media, advertising, strategic communication, international business, politics and diplomacy.
Graduate Programs
We offer several graduate degrees focused on the the fast-changing modern media world.
The Professional Practice Option is for students who wish to focus on quickly obtaining advanced journalistic skills.
The Area of Expertise Option is for students wishing not only to acquire advanced journalistic skills but also to complement them with an area of expertise, such as environmental science and policy.
The online master's degree in journalism entrepreneurship prepares students for professional careers at news outlets, and in digital and social media platforms, corporate communications and the freelance market. It particularly focuses on entrepreneurship and preparing students for today’s media environment, one in which skills in both journalism and business are essential.
This degree is designed for students with a limited range of experience in journalism.
The Journalism Studies PhD program is dedicated to interdisciplinary inquiry into the social, political, economic and cultural dimensions of media, strategic communication, and journalism, both nationally and internationally, and in historical and contemporary contexts. The degree combines the research and teaching emphases of the three participating departments – Advertising, Public Relations and Design (APRD); Journalism (JRNL); and Media Studies (MDST) – and encourages doctoral students to develop research agendas that bridge disciplines and cross between academic research and professional practice.
