Medill's 2020 Curricula

Watch an October 14 interview with NBC 5's Warner Saunders featuring John Lavine discussing Medill's curricula.

Warner Saunders interview - Part One

Warner Saunders interview - Part Two 

LINK TO CURRICULA Q and A

Undergraduate Journalism

Medill's undergraduate journalism program is designed to strengthen students' ability to report, write, edit and present compelling stories for a wide range of media. Building on Medill's already high standards, the new program requires a 100 percent increase in the amount of core skills class time for freshmen and now allows and encourages upperclassmen to take additional reporting and technique electives. Multimedia storytelling is integrated through all reporting classes, and quantitative skills and ethics are woven throughout the curriculum.

As early as sophomore year, Medill students are immersed in real-world, hands-on reporting at storefront locations in diverse Chicago neighborhoods, and as upperclassmen, they spend a full quarter working as reporters and editors in newspapers, magazines, broadcast and online operations through the Journalism Residency program, formerly known as Teaching Media.

Additionally, new elective courses focus on reader and viewer insight and give students an understanding of how the information age is radically changing the way the public seeks out, receives and interprets the news and how journalism can thrive amid these new realities.

Graduate Journalism

The graduate journalism program maintains its solid grounding in the skills vital to success in journalism, while increasing its focus on the subjects and techniques that prepare students for the increasingly complex environments in which they will work.

Students can deepen their subject expertise with concentrations in Business and Economics; Government, Policy and Politics; or Health and Science. Or they can choose to focus on specialized techniques beyond basic reporting and writing: Videography/Broadcast; Magazine Writing, Editing and Publishing; and Interactive Storytelling. As with the undergraduate program, real-world experience remains a hallmark of Medill's graduate education. Students will continue to work in our newsrooms in Chicago and Washington, D.C., filing multimedia stories on deadline that are distributed to newspaper, magazine, broadcast and online clients and packaged on our new Web sites, Medill Reports Chicago and Medill Reports Washington.

In their final quarter, graduate students can choose from an expanded menu of capstone projects that give them the opportunity to do advanced reporting and storytelling. Or they may choose to participate in an innovation project where they create, from scratch, a new journalism-based entity, often in partnership with a media company. In an optional fifth quarter, students can go abroad to report in newsrooms from Paris to South Africa; elect to take another capstone project; or do advanced reporting in Washington.

Integrated Marketing Communications

Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC) education was invented at Medill, and we are pleased to introduce an advanced graduate IMC program that will give students an even more sophisticated understanding of why and how consumers connect with brands in this technology-driven age.

The program equips students to leverage multiple technologies, including interactive and emerging media, to connect with consumers through the channels of most relevance and interest to them. The program's intensified emphasis on an analytical approach, rigorous research, creative and compelling content development and emerging technologies will give our students the skills, knowledge and experience they need to meet today's marketing challenges with creativity and innovation.

In this letter, I have touched briefly on the new directions we are taking. You can read the curricula in full by following the links below. The Medill faculty and I welcome your feedback. Please send your comments and questions to: medill-feedback@northwestern.edu.

I will collect questions and post responses here over the next several months.