UF Online students will have another major to choose from come Fall 2016.
The College of Journalism and Communications is expanding its reach across the country by adding the public relations degree to UF Online, said UF public relations chair Juan-Carlos Molleda.
The core classes of the major will be the same as those for on-campus students, but new electives will be offered only to online students, Molleda said. The techniques used to teach the classes and assignments given will not change.
“The idea is that we take the most advantage of the technology and the most advantage of the experience UF Online already has and try to make this very attractive and at the same time very rigorous,” he said.
Jennifer Smith, the director of development and course production for UF Online, said that the decision to add public relations to the program was based on predicted growth of the industry.
“Public relations is really involved with almost everything you can think of,” she said.
Smith said she doesn’t know how many students are going to sign up for the degree, but she hopes to have a number that reflects the amount of on-campus majors. Required classes, such as reporting and multimedia writing, will be included on UF Online. Even though these classes are physical journalism chair Ted Spiker, said those students should be able to do just as well online.
“I’m pretty confident that we can do almost anything in that online format that we’re doing live,” Spiker said.
Lectures and timed assignments can be put online, and students can do outside reporting from their location, he said.
“Obviously there are a lot of people who think that you’re going to lose some elements in losing the live part, and I think that is true for some cases,” he said. “But the goal and the hope is that you’re still going to provide a high-quality educational experience.”
UF psychology and public relations senior Torri Macarages said the public relations degree is something that should be done in person.
“PR is all about interacting with people and building relationships,” the 21-year-old said. “I just don’t see how you can succeed in a public relations course if you’re sitting behind a computer screen and you have that wall up.”
Contact Alexandra Fernandez at afernandez@alligator.org and follow her on Twitter @alexmfern
