A JMC student needs courses and experiences that differ from those needed by a student seeking a career in agronomy or chemical engineering or elementary education. So the university has an organizational structure to subdivide its 20,000 students into interest areas and to provide each set of students with the most appropriate course of study.
In JMC, a student must complete at least 126 credit hours of coursework. Most courses are for 3 credit hours, meaning that students meet as a class for about three hours a week. Students should plan on twice as many hours of readings and projects outside the classroom as inside.
Most students hope to complete their degrees in four years. At K-State, a Bachelor’s degree consists of 126 hours, meaning that in order to finish in four years, a student would need to take approximately 16 hours each fall and spring semester. Sometimes, however, students have excessive work or family obligations, requiring them to reduce their course load to 12 hours per semester (12 credits is the minimum amount of hours to be considered a fulltime student). For them, completing their degrees may be a five-year process.
Kansas State University is subdivided into eight colleges on campus. A student's major course of study determines which college curriculum is required. The Miller School is in the College of Arts and Sciences. The Arts and Sciences curriculum - courses in the humanities, social sciences, natural sciences and math - fulfills about 60 of the 126 hours required for graduation.
All students in the College of Arts and Sciences have the same requirements. Students’ degree plans differ only in terms of their major academic focus.
Arts and Sciences academic units are: Art, Biochemistry, Biology, Chemistry, Economics, English, Geography, Geology, History, Journalism and Mass Communications, Kinesiology, Mathematics, Modern Languages, Music, Philosophy, Physics, Political Science, Psychology, Sociology/Anthropology/Social Work, Speech/Theatre/Dance, and Statistics.
Beyond the College of Arts and Sciences requirements, JMC students are required to complete at least 39 credit hours in the School of Journalism and Mass Communications. In so doing, they must take courses required in one of the school's specialty areas.
The sequences are: Advertising, Journalism and Digital Media and Public Relations.
With the college specifying 65 hours of coursework and the major specifying 39 hours, what are the remaining 25 or so hours needed to reach the 126 hours for graduation? These are "electives,” courses that are not required by any academic unit.
These can be regular classroom courses or credit for extracurricular activities such as participation in a music group or the debate team. The only rule is that elective hours must be outside the School of Journalism and Mass Communications, since accreditation requires students to have at least 87 hours outside the major to graduate.
A portion of these electives must come from an outside concentration, where students are develop a l5-hour concentration in an academic unit outside the Miller School.