Masters Degree

All of your admissions application materials will be submitted online to UGA Graduate Admissions including your application for admission, transcripts, resume, letters of recommendation, and statement of purpose. If offered admission, official transcripts should be sent electronically from your institution or mailed. The application process begins by submitting your application and materials to the UGA Graduate School, at their website Graduate Studies website.

The Grady College MFA degree has different requirements. See the MFA Narrative Media Writing webpage or the MFA Film, Television and Digital Media website for more information about those degrees.

Upload the following items to the Graduate School: (1) completed application form, (2) all transcripts (from every institution of higher learning at which you were enrolled; for even one course), (3) current resume, (4) Three letters of recommendation (completed via email after you submit your recommenders email addresses. Ph.D. candidates should submit 3 former professors as recommenders), and (5) a 2-3 page Statement of Purpose (SOP). The SOP should provide information about your educational background and interests, your reasons or interests in pursuing a graduate degree in a journalism or mass communication area, and the reasons Grady College’s graduate program is a good match for you and your professional, academic, or research interests.

A small number of competitively awarded graduate assistantships are available to admitted MA students. These assistantships usually involve 13 hours of work per week for the 9-month assistantship period, with most assignments being teaching or research assistants. These assistantships provide a monthly stipend (with 10 monthly payments) and a reduction of tuition to $25 per semester. These are renewable for up to two years based on academic and job performance. MA assistantship awards often involve a competitive application and selection process, where interested students submit a cover letter and resume in response to a provided assistantship opening.

The Grady College graduate program has very few M.A. graduate assistantships, and we generally do not know until mid-April or later if there will be funds to support M.A. assistantships for the upcoming academic year. For almost all available M.A. assistantships, we use a competitive process to fill them. When an M.A. graduate assistantship becomes available, the Grady College Graduate Office sends out an assistantship position announcement to incoming and current M.A. students. These announcements describe the assistantship responsibilities, the program in which the assistantship is housed, and the assistantship eligibility requirements, as well as the deadline for submitting a cover letter and resume. With respect to eligibility requirements, it is often the case that assistantship opportunities vary across Grady College departments, and that affects both assistantship availability and which students are considered (e.g., assistantships funded by the Journalism Dept. are only available to journalism concentration students and assistantships that involve the ADPR Dept. are only available to students in the AD, PR, Health Communication & Media, and IADPR concentrations). 

The length of the MA degree program will depend on your undergraduate degree and the courses taken to complete that degree.

It takes from 3 to 5 semesters to finish the MA program assuming registration for a full credit load fall, spring, and summer semesters. The typical MA student spends 3 to 5 semesters taking courses and writing a thesis; the typical MA non-thesis student spends 3 to 4 semesters taking courses.

An additional semester is normally required if prerequisites are required. MA students without courses in journalism and mass communication-related areas will most likely have to satisfy prerequisite courses, which will require additional time.

For planning purposes, it is best to think about the MA as two-year degree program.

Our Ph.D. degree takes a minimum of three years to complete. The first two years are spent taking courses. The third year of the program is spent doing dissertation work. Comprehensive exams and the dissertation proposal are completed during the student’s second summer or third fall semester.

Most graduate students are admitted for fall semester entry. Emerging Media master’s students start in the summer. An accepted student may begin his or her studies summer semester; however, a limited number of undergraduate and graduate courses are offered each summer. Most students begin classes in the fall.