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University of Florida

In-Class Immersion

In addition to the formal, hands-on experiences working along side professionals, students also learn real-world skills in class and through student-run organizations. For a list of student organizations, visit: www.jou.ufl.edu/knight-division/student-organizations.

Advertising

For advertising students, the student-run Ad Society operates Elevate, a non-profit agency working on campaigns for two clients each year. The internal agency is run by an account director and creative director. In the classroom, students in the College’s campaigns courses work on strategy, research, media, and/or creative for clients such as Yamaha, Sallie Mae, Tervis and local pizza restaurant Piesanos. Classes include:

  • ADV 4302 Great Ideas in Marketplace Communications:  Focuses on two aspects of strategic communications. First: creating, developing and producing advertising and promotional content for real live case studies. Second: evaluating topical issues and industry innovation in media content innovation.
  • ADV 4801 Creative Advertising Competitions: Create either a competitive creative campaign for a real-world client or participate in a creative advertising competition. Hone creative skills and learn to prepare professional pitches or presentations.
  • ADV 4800 Advertising Campaigns: An advanced advertising course requiring the student to prepare and produce a complete general advertising campaign for a real-world client. Emphasis is placed on budgeting, media, creative, strategy, and research.
  • ADV 4930 Branding and Social Media:  This course helps you understand the basics of developing an IMC plan, the role of the social media marketing plan in IMC, developing a Social Media Marketing Plan with a focus on branding, and the impact of social media on a brand.
  • ADV 4940 Advertising Internship: Students complete an internship in the advertising field or related field.
  • ADV 4930 STEM Research & Application: This 3-credit course provides students with an in-depth research experience focused on translational communication in a specific health or science domain (varies according to instructor expertise). In this course, students will be introduced to team-based, social scientific communication research focused on the translation of information for lay audiences. This course is considered a research immersion course. This means students will work in a small group to conduct a research study from beginning to end! This course is appropriate for students from all disciplines.
  • ADV 4941 Advanced Advertising Internship: Students complete a structured internship program as an immersion experience in the field of advertising. Submission of e-portfolio required.
  • ADV 4910: Undergraduate Research: Mentored but self-directed work in exploring a research topic of interest.

Journalism

Journalism students, in addition to reporting, writing and editing in several classes, can work on several immersion-related experiences. Some examples:

  • JOU 4201 News Center Practicum: Multiple sections offered for courses that run through the Innovation News Center in such areas as web producing, various sports roles for ESPN Gainesville, specialized TV skills and more.
  • JOU 4950 Applied Journalism: This capstone course has various courses, including one for Fresh Take Florida, the news service that covers the state with stories distributed globally.
  • JOU 4447c Applied Magazines: Student-run magazines Orange & Blue and Atrium focus on writing, editing, photography and design roles.
  • JOU 4940 Journalism Internship: Outside experiences with various organizations. Professional supervision and application required.

Other: Many courses in the journalism curriculum have a range of experiences and assignments that intersect with the Innovation News Center and WUFT, such as JOU 3346 Multimedia Reporting, RTV 3303 Audio News Reporting, RTV 4301 TV News Reporting, and advanced courses in audio, TV, producing and more.

Media Production, Management, and Technology

ChomPics is our national award-winning production group. ChomPics members have produced a variety of comedy, dramatic, and entertainment news programs. Depending on track, the following courses are capstone experiences for MPMT students

  • RTV 4929c- Advanced Production Workshop: This is the capstone course for students in the Digital Film and Television Production track. Students may select from several video genres (such as Documentary, or Dramatic Production)
  • RTV 4800- Planning and Operations: Students work with professional media outlets on projects related to leading and managing both legacy and digital media organizations, including personnel supervision, financial oversight, strategic planning, consumer/audience data analysis and insights, branding/marketing, ethics and social responsibilities
  • RTV 4905/4910- Senior Project: Media and Society students work under the supervision of a faculty member or qualified professional to produce a research or practical project related to the use of media by organizations for internal and/or external audiences

Public Relations

Public Relations students run Alpha PRoductions, Florida’s largest student-run public relations firm. Clients have included Levi’s, STEM Florida and Tioga Dental. The Bateman Case Study Team creates public relations campaigns as part of the Public Relations Student Society of America’s national Bateman Competition. CJC’s team has won first place honors nine times. Classes include:

  • PUR 4800 – Public Relations Campaigns: This capstone course introduces students to the process of campaign development, management, and evaluation for real-world clients.
  • PUR 4932 – Competitive Reports: In this elective students compete in the PR Week Outstanding PR Student Competition. This class was taught in 2018 and had a student in the top 5 and 2019 with one student in the top 5 and the grand prize winner!
  • PUR 4905 – Learning Immersion Classes: These classes are taught by PR professionals who provide hands-on experience with important topics. For example, the class Rapid Response Crisis was taught by Linda Rutherford, the CCO at Southwest Airlines. This class included an intensive crisis simulation on a Saturday.