BY ELLIE GERST | the Statesman
Students at UMD now have two new options to consider in their educational pursuits. This 2016 Spring semester, a journalism major and a material science minor have officially been implemented at UMD.
“We’ve had a major in journalism for a number of years, it’s just been a track in an existing program,” John Hatcher, UMD professor and coordinator of the journalism program, said.
“What we’ve learned in communicating with both current and former students, and what we’re hearing from admissions about prospective students, is that if we had our own stand-alone major in journalism, it would succeed.”
The journalism program at UMD will be moving over from the Department of Writing Studies to the Department of Communication. The major will consist of a 22 credit core and students will be able to choose other electives to fill the rest of the requirement.
“We want the degree to be flexible to really meet the passions of the students,” Hatcher said.
“I would say that this is a major that we want students to do all kinds of things with. We’re giving them the tools of journalism and the ways of thinking about the world journalistically, but in this dynamic kind of work force it’s really up to the student to decide how they’re going to use those skills.”
Students are getting geared up for the major as well.
“I’m really excited about the new major because I’m currently enrolled as a writing studies major with an emphasis in journalism and I think it will be nice to have a major catered more specifically to what I want to do,” freshman Cheyenne Vavrina said.
Idun Rasmussen, a sophomore at UMD, says that she’s happy with the change to a journalism major because it’s “more modern” and incorporates things like social media and radio into the program.
“I’ve seen a couple of the course requirements and they seem really cool,” Rasmussen said. “I’m actually taking Social Media Strategies right now and that’s really fun.
Students who plan to do so can now officially change their majors over to journalism.
“In the next week or two we’re going to have some informational meetings and we’ll have people from the CLA advising office there so that students can just switch over right on the spot,” Hatcher said.
Another new course of study at UMD is the material science and engineering minor. It’s based on introducing students to a material based approach to problem solving. The minor has a requirement of 45 credits and consists of a variety of different math and science courses.
“The material science minor is basically a series of courses that students can take that introduce them to basic properties and use of materials,” UMD professor Daniel Pope said.
“Whenever you’re making anything as an engineer or scientist, there’s so many specific applications that require materials that are specific to the environment, so familiarity with the applications of different types of materials comes up quite a bit.”
The material science minor and journalism major are now open.