Starting fall 2020, students with an interest in public relations and advertising can take both as one major. The decision was made after a study was conducted looking at where students in the respective majors go after graduation.
The chairperson of the communication department, Tony Adams, said that the field has been changing in recent years.
“People in the industry, when we tell them we have advertising and public relations as majors, they tell us to put them together,” Adams said. “In the industry they’re treated to go hand-in-hand.”
Both of the majors were viewed as separate jobs previously and do have some differences.
Christopher Marsh, an instructor teaching both fields of study on campus, noted the differences between the studies. Advertising answers the needs of a company while public relations is looking to create bonds with the audience.
“You can spend millions of dollars on a Super Bowl ad, that’s great,” Marsh said. “But what are you doing on the ground?”
There are different types of advertisement, but the one that has more involvement is “earned advertising.” This is mostly the work of a company’s social media account and being interactive with an audience which introduces the public relations part of advertising.
While the industry changes, Bradley is making its own changes to reflect what students might face once they graduate.
“Some of my friends were not aware until I told them, but they thought it was pretty cool,” said freshman advertising major Jennifer Reyes. “Other [people] don’t want to have two majors as one and prefer to have one they originally [came in with].”
A change in course requirements may have some students worried if they’ll graduate on time. Students who are far along their respective studies won’t be affected. Enrolled underclassmen aren’t forced to take any, but they are encouraged.
Adams explained forcing students out of their field of study would be problematic. The only students that will be affected are incoming students or current undecided students that want to claim public relations or advertising next semester as to not interrupt current students’ credits.
“We aren’t changing any of the courses,” Adams said. “It’s just a new structure of classes, nothing changes.”
Since advertising and public relations have classes that overlap, the new requirements will be more of a reformulation.
The new major will require 42 credits to graduate and will introduce a minor. It will be the third minor in the communication department and will require 18 credit hours. The minor will be open to every student on campus even without a relation to communication.
