Required Courses
The APR portion of your BS degree is comprised of 16 required courses. Two quarters of Co-op are also required. In addition to your communication classes, you must take 16 credit hours in your Professional Core, 28 credit hours in math and science courses, and 74 credit hours in other Liberal Arts and Institute elective courses.
Presented below are the descriptions of the courses you'll encounter as an APR student. Keep in mind that the faculty continually update and refine the content of each course, so minor changes may be made from time to time. Elective course offerings change periodically; it's a good idea to consult your advisor, the RIT Undergraduate Bulletin and quarterly schedules to get the most up-to-date information available.
| Course # | Title |
| 0535-200 | Foundations of Communication |
| 0535-315 | Quantitative Research Methods |
| 0535-316 | Qualitative Research Methods |
| 0535-421 | Public Relations |
| 0535-445 | Theories of Communication |
| 0535-450 | Visual Communication |
| 0535-460 | Copywriting and Visualization |
| 0535-461 | Principles of Advertising |
| 0535-462 | Digital Design in Communication |
| 0535-463 | Campaign Management and Planning |
| 0535-464 | Public Relations Writing |
| 0535-467 | Media Planning |
| 0535-481 | Persuasion |
| 0535-482 | Mass Communications |
| 0535-501 | Public Speaking |
| 0535-595 | Senior Thesis in Communication |
0535-200 - Foundations of Communication
Introduces students to the history of human communication from speech to computers. Spoken, written and visual communication in a variety of contexts is surveyed. The course also introduces students to the PTC faculty and to other students. Twice annually, a PTC faculty member coordinates the course with the participation of all full time PTC faculty. Each faculty member teaches for one week, emphasizing a different area within the field of communication. The faculty coordinator acquaints students with research indexes, communication journals, and the academic resources available at Wallace Library.
No prerequisites
0535-315 - Quantitative Research Methods
An introduction to the methods and ethics of scientific, scholarly communication research. Techniques taught include the methods of locating, analyzing, and critiquing communication research literature. This course focuses on social scientific empirical research methods and culminates in the development of a research project proposal. This research proposal or one developed in the other required Research Methods course should be used as the groundwork for the student's project in Senior Thesis in Communication.Prerequisites: 0535-200, 445
0535-316 - Qualitative Research Methods
Introduction to the methods and ethics of critical research, participant observation, naturalistic study, and focus group interviewing. Qualitative research methods rely on the researcher's observational, analytic and critical skills and seeks to understand the behaviors, beliefs, values, attitudes, assumptions, rituals and symbol systems that characterize relationships between the source, message, media and audience of specific communication acts. Students develop a research proposal suitable for implementation as the Senior Thesis in Communication. Required course for professional and technical communicatoin majors.Prerequisites: 0535-200, 445
You are required to take Quantitative Research Methods and Qualitative Research Methods. Most students use the research project proposal developed in one of these Research Methods courses to later conduct original research in the Senior Thesis in Communication course. Doing so generally results in a superior thesis and significantly reduced senior anxiety.
0535-421 - Public Relations
An introduction to the study of public relations. Topics include history, research areas, laws, ethics, and social responsibilities as they relate to the theory and practice of public relations.No prerequisites.
0535-445 - Theories of Communication
An introduction to communication theories, including a history of the major stages in the development of modern theories of communication. Theories based both in the humanities and in the social sciences are covered.
Prerequisite: 0535-200
0535-450 - Visual Communication
An introduction to the study of visual communication through the use of resources and firsthand experience. Differences between verbal and visual modes of communication are explored. Iconic and symbolic demonstration of visual images used in a variety of media are stressed. The course includes a number of class and individual visits to museums, galleries and exhibits. The major goal of the course is to examine visual messages as intentional communication that seeks to inform, persuade and/or propagandize specific target audiences.Prerequisites: 0535-200
0535-460 - Copywriting and Visualization
An opportunity for undergraduates to learn the verbal and visual thinking skills utilized in the creation of advertising messages. To create an effective strategy for an advertising campaign, the advertising copywriter/art director team needs to combine linguistic and visual metaphors into a persuasive message. Students will develop creative advertising messages by researching and writing a creative brief and then implementing the plan by transforming concepts into actual advertising messages and campaigns.Prerequisites: none.
0535-461 - Principles of Advertising
This course is an introduction to the advertising communication process. It is designed to show how advertising is integrated into the larger discipline of marketing communications. Marketing communications is the integration of internal and external communication systems. It involves coordinating the various promotional mix elements (advertising, sales promotion, publicity, and public relations) along with other marketing activities to more effectively communicate with a company's customers.Prerequisites: none.
0535-462 - Digital Design in Communication
An opportunity for undergraduates to learn advertising message design through the use of digital technology. A wide variety of computer software programs are available to support the research, writing, visualization, and design of messages. Students will have an opportunity to work with desktop publishing, image processing, and design templates to enable them to think about their copy concepts in a variety of advertising layouts, which support different types of visual metaphors. Digital tools will be available for students with a variety of different levels of computer skills. Novice users can work with advertising templates to visualize messages. More advanced students can modify or create their own templates.0535-463 - Campaign Management and Planning
This course introduces students to the managing and planning of advertising and public relations campaigns. It takes a team project approach thereby helping students learn how to work together in class as well as in a competitive agency. Service-learning will be used to expose students to community causes and sevice-learning.0535-464 - Public Relations Writing
This course covers a variety of forms of writing for public relations, including news releases, newsletters, backgrounders, public service announcements, magazine queries, interviews, coverage memos, media alerts, features, trade press releases, and public presentations. Students will write for a variety of media including print, broadcast, and the Web.0535-467 - Media Planning
This is an introduction to developing, executing and managing media plans for advertising and public relations. This course covers the characteristics and uses of advertising media, media terms and calculations, media strategies and tactics, and media plan development and implementation. Professional elective for undergraduate communication and business majors. Prerequisite: 0535-461.0535-481 - Persuasion
A study of the theories, practices and effects of persuasion. Persuasion is defined as human communication designed to influence another's attitudes, beliefs, values and actions. Objectives of this course include developing an understanding of how contemporary persuasion continually shapes our society, while seeking to heighten our abilities to detect and analyze persuasive appeals. The course is specifically designed to investigate the prevalence of persuasive communication in various facets of our culture.Prerequisite: 0535-200.
0535-482 - Mass Communications
An introductory analysis of newspapers, television, radio, magazines and other mass media. The course focuses on the history, development, economics and law and regulation of the mass media in the United States, and explores theoretical considerations of contemporary mass communication issues.Prerequisite: 0535-200.
0535-501 - Public Speaking
Effective Speaking equips students with knowledge of the theories and principles of formal public speaking. Informative and persuasive speeches are the focus, with emphasis on organization, evidence, language use, audience analysis, situational demands, strategy, delivery and effective use of media technology.No Prerequisite.
0535-595 - Senior Thesis in Communication
A research course which provides students with the opportunity to initiate and complete an original research project. This course guides students through the early decisions necessary to planning and completing the thesis; provides instruction for specific methods of research; provides a guided time line to keep work on schedule; offers instructional feedback for individual sections of your thesis and affords opportunities to participate in peer review. The course culminates in an oral presentation of the completed senior thesis that meets the formal requirements of the department (See Thesis Handbook).Prerequisite: 0535-315 and 0535-316.