Master's Project, Special Programs, or Practicum 

The fourth quarter for MSJ students gives you professional experiences or the option to create thesis-level multimedia and long-form narrative stories. These experiences refine your mastery of journalism by enabling you to apply a cumulative composite of MSJ training and expand your career credentials.

You have three options to complete your required fourth-quarter Master's Project, Practicum or Special Program:

Option 1: Master's Project

Under the guidance of an expert faculty adviser, students produce professional quality journalism in a variety of formats including text, audio and video. Strong student work is often published in professional news outlets.

Option 2: Special Programs

• Washington, D.C. offers course work and practicum experiences focused on Politics, Policy and Foreign Affairs. Students in this specialization are automatically enrolled. Students outside of the specialization may apply.
• San Francisco offers course work and practicum experiences focused on Media Management and Leadership. Students in the specialization have a reserved spot. Students outside of the specialization may apply.
• Embedded reporting, which includes field reporting with researchers and the production of in-depth multimedia journalism upon return.

Option 3: Student-Initiated Practicums

You can find your own full-time internship at a broadcast, magazine, newspaper, online news service, audio outlet or other media site. Medill must approve that sites fits our criteria for a rigorous and enriching experience. We can selectively provide support services to identify sites.

• You commit to a 10-week, full-time internship for two units of academic credit.
• You commit to a part-time internship for one unit of academic credit.
• A faculty adviser oversees the level of work produced and interfaces with you and the site.
• You research a paper contextualizing the changes, challenges and future of the media industry that your internship site represents.