By Jason Archer, MSU StratCom director
Would you like a $20,000 annual raise? Who wouldn’t? We all want to advance. We want promotions, better benefits, higher salary, greater work/life balance and more. We want meaning in our work. We want to feel like our work matters. And with unprecedented opportunity in the workforce today, there is a pathway to this: A graduate degree or certificate.
A recent article from CNBC referenced a report from the National Association of Colleges and Employers. They analyzed which master’s degrees created the biggest increase in earnings for graduates, known as a differential. Of the top 19 graduate degrees, Communication & Media Studies was #4. The difference in annual salary with someone with a Bachelor’s [$42,345] vs. Master’s degree [$61,166] was nearly $20,000 annually. When I read this, I nearly jumped out of my skin because that is literally what we do.
The MSU StratCom M.A. was created to be both practical and transactional. The curriculum was designed in partnership with industry to make sure skills from our grads match needs in the workforce. With one, two and three-year tracks, multiple certificates, and a flexible program design centered around the working professional, there has never been a better time to bet on yourself for the journey ahead.
Meet Christen
“It’s a great feeling to know you’re learning relevant knowledge that you can immediately execute in your career every day. The ability to enlist social media listening tools, new storytelling techniques and strategic messaging methods have made me stronger in my profession and a valuable asset to my clients and company." - Christen Rochon, M.A. 2020, Integrated Account Manager, EW Scripps Company
We created this over five years ago with dreams that it would be transformative to people. We placed service as a priority married closely with curriculum. We opened our doors and hearts to the first twenty students. A few hundred students later and we know this to be true: the program works. As we celebrate our fifth anniversary, we’ve seen an unprecedented number of students get promotions, raises, career pivots, and achieve the goals they set out when they started. See for yourself and read actual student testimonials to witness the impact of the intersection of hungry and talented students with our faculty, staff and program.
Meet Amy
"...I was given a promotion to a newly created position of chief experience officer and moved to the senior executive wing of our headquarters. This was all due to the fact that I didn’t just go back to school to get a piece of paper, but I chose a program that taught real-world techniques/lessons that I could immediately apply to my job from day one." - Amy McGraw, M.A. 2020, VP Marketing/Chief Experience Officer, Tropical Financial Credit Union
Now we look to the future. Our next cohort begins in January of 2022. Our application deadline has been extended for this cohort to Dec. 1. Learn more about the program, schedule a one-on-one consultation with me to get personalized answers to your questions, and consider taking your next step to advance your career with us. The red carpet is rolled out - or in our case, our carpets are only one color: green.