<p>Is it good? I'm thinking of majoring in Advertising and maybe pair it with Film or something like that.</p>
<p>Ouch. I came here looking for something similar. The fact there’s over 200 views and zero responses tells me the department is small and not very well known.</p>
<p>Actually, their web page says it is the largest accredited communications program in the country. [Welcome</a>! — College of Communications](<a href=“http://comm.psu.edu/about]Welcome”>http://comm.psu.edu/about) It’s possible that no one involved with the College frequents this forum.</p>
<p>Here’s an article about one of their grads, who is now chief White House correspondent for The Associated Press-- [Conversations</a> from Penn State: Ben Feller](<a href=“http://conversations.psu.edu/episodes/ben_feller]Conversations”>http://conversations.psu.edu/episodes/ben_feller)</p>
<p>Marketing and PR are both controlled majors, I believe PR is controlled both by gpa and by number, so it limits to some extent who gets in (remember though, there are 45,000 students at UP, so “limit” is a relative term). College of COMM operates from studios and labs out at Innovation Park, which is a satellite campus away from town. Classes are sometimes there, and sometimes on campus. Competition for the studio work is fierce — there are three sections of a production class, so that’s about 60 students of the 2500 comm majors (obviously, many of them are not production oriented, but you mentioned film). Film/Video majors do not touch a camera until junior year, and are admitted based on portfolio work submitted end of soph. year. </p>
<p>We visited and asked the head of the film majors “why PSU and not Ithaca, for example” and she said “Gee, I don’t really know anything about Ithaca. Maybe it’s good too”. On the plus side is all the opportunities offered, but the competition is fierce.</p>
<p>That must have been a while ago; the current head of film is male and has been there at least five years.</p>
<p>We have two kids who were Comm majors and both had good experiences. I guess it really depends on exactly what types of things you’re looking for, but our kids had great professors, interesting classes and got a lot of hands-on, practical experience. Also, the Comm internship guy is somewhat famous around PSU for being so successful at lining up great opportunities for students. Another perk (and of course this applies to any major) is the huge alumni network. There are Penn Staters in top roles at many media, entertainment and advertising companies, which can help you make a connection when you’re trying to get your foot in the door. </p>
<p>As was already noted, several of the programs are controlled majors, so it’s good to have a backup plan. (However, one of our kids is a film major and he did lots of camera work before junior year, so that gave him a chance to do a test run and make sure he liked it before he applied for entrance to the major.)</p>
<p>I’m in the college of communications, and while I can’t say much about it, I can say that it’s pretty good for my major (media studies) based on my intro classes. I’m pairing it with Economics, so that should be pretty interesting.</p>
<p>grigg- I would suggest you speak with an advisor and/or current student in the communications school who can answer your questions. It would be just luck if someone on this forum happened to know much about the communications school.</p>