My D has been admitted to the University of Michigan as well as USC’s Annenberg School of Communications. I would be interested in any feedback concerning the quality of the communications studies programs at each school, as well as comparing the quality of the liberal arts education generally at each school. I appreciate the these colleges have a lot of differences (small college town v big city, etc), and that both are expensive (We are residents of Northern CA). Thanks
Our D transferred from Michigan to USC Annenberg, from which she graduated last year. The Communciation major at Michigan was more theoretical and less pragmatic than at USC. She also hated the cold and gray winters at Michigan–be sure your D is okay with that! Probably more related internships in LA than Ann Arbor, and better alumni network for Communication at USC. My impression is that non-communication academic courses were comparable. She did get a job in her field within 2 months of graduation at a company where she had done an internship.
@beatstanford what is her intended major in Annenberg and career path? That will help me better answer.
Intended career path could be something related to business communications, but wants to keep her options open. Perhaps an MBA at some point, but hard to predict at this point.
Ok, then as a USC Annenberg grad with a Michigan son, I can say emphatically that Annenberg is far and away the better choice for communications. We had (even more now) real world professors from PR firms, newspapers, entertainment firms, fortune 500’s - you name it. The internship opps in LA and SF in this field are impressive - she’d have to go to New York to get the same at UM. USC is consistently ranked in the top 5 for communications and UM hovers near 20. If she wanted to go the business route as a minor, both Marshall at USC and Ross at UM are very comparable, and as @momof3 said, so are the core classes. My CA son does fine in the winter weather, so I think it’s a personal preference there. There is little to no OOS aid at Michigan if that’s an issue, and travel to CA is expensive and sometimes very delayed in winter. My son is thriving at UM but he’s not in this major. Fight on all the way.