University of San Francisco - College of Arts & Sciences
MA in Professional CommunicationSan Francisco, USA
DURATION
2 Years
LANGUAGES
English
PACE
Full time
APPLICATION DEADLINE
Request application deadline
EARLIEST START DATE
Sep 2025
TUITION FEES
USD 26,560 / per year *
STUDY FORMAT
On-Campus
* for living on campus and living in off-campus housing
Key Summary
Introduction
The Master of Arts in Professional Communication (MAPC) provides the knowledge and skills for superior oral, written, and visual communication expertise. Our program is designed for people who seek the techniques and critical thinking required to be communication leaders in a changing workplace and a wide range of industries.
An Overview of USF’s MA in Professional Communication Degree
The MAPC program features small class sizes, personal attention, and opportunities for applied research and professional engagement.
- The program’s convenient schedule of late afternoon and evening courses appeals to full-time graduate students and enables professionals to work while completing their degrees.
- The MAPC includes courses that meet both on-campus and in a hybrid (on-campus/online) format for flexibility and convenience while providing engagement with cutting-edge technology.
- Offering three concentrations, the program creates a community of professional communicators who have varied career interests in the fields of health, technical, and strategic communication.
Admissions
Curriculum
- PC 600 - Foundations & Ethics of Communication
- PC 603 - Conflict Communication
- PC 604 - Research Methods
- PC 608 - Capstone/Culminating
Strategic Communication
Strategic communicators work as strategists, planners, designers, and leaders to develop results-oriented plans and target messages both within and outside of organizations to impact behavior and reputation. Students enrolled in this concentration analyze how organizations interact internally and externally with their stakeholders, industry, and traditional or digital media. Students also gain practical communication skills that give them a competitive edge in a changing hybrid and in-person workplace that is still evolving.
Technical Communication
Technical communicators translate complex scientific, engineering, or technical information into content that users can understand and utilize. Students enrolled in this concentration learn how to communicate with the user while ensuring that the product or service has a competitive advantage. As technology and AI advance and changes the way several industries gather, analyze, and integrate data, the demand for such skilled, user-centered, and agile technical communicators has never been greater.
Health Communication
This concentration equips students with the theoretical and practical communication tools needed to effectively and ethically impact public and personal health literacy through developing health awareness campaigns, improving patient relationships, and explaining health care policy. Health communication professionals are critical to making complex healthcare issues understandable so employers, regulators, policymakers, and consumers can be informed and take appropriate action to build healthier communities and live healthier lives.
Program Outcome
- Core Knowledge: Graduate students will define, identify, and apply the rhetorical conventions and strategies appropriate to communicating effectively and ethically to varied audiences.
- Scholarly Communication: Graduate students will write and edit a substantial amount of revised prose, meeting standards and applying conventions defined by the field of communication.
- Professionalism: Graduate students will produce written, oral and digital communication of high quality consistent with their professional concentration and focus.
- Research: Graduate students will conduct skilled and ethical research in the field of communication and contribute original knowledge in their chosen industry and profession.
Scholarships and Funding
The MSCS program offers a limited number of merit-based scholarships to incoming and current graduate students, both domestic and international, on a competitive basis.
MSCS Admission Scholarship
Awarded to incoming MSCS applicants with outstanding applications from all backgrounds. Approximate awards range up to $5k over the first year of study.
MSCS Merit Scholarship
Awarded to incoming MSCS applicants with outstanding applications from all backgrounds, or current MSCS graduate students who demonstrate outstanding skills and leadership. Approximate awards range from $5–10k over one to two semesters.
The Dean's Scholarship
An award of up to $15,000 to use toward tuition, research, and conference travel. Connect with other Dean's Scholarship recipients and leaders across the College of Arts & Sciences. Serve as a program representative to USF donor initiatives to help transform the lives of other USF students. For more information please see the College of Arts and Sciences Dean’s Scholarships website.
Double Dons Scholarship
USF Alumni and current students can be awarded the USF Double Dons Scholarship upon admission. The scholarship covers 20% of the program tuition, and may not be stacked with other USF scholarship awards. Exceptions may apply.
Career Opportunities
The communication landscape has become increasingly complex given the ongoing pandemic, natural disasters, the social justice movement, and global political upheaval. Lives are much more complicated and previous models for how, when, and why we communicate are changing to reflect new ways of working. Amidst these changing times, MAPC students are learning how to pivot to the future.
Prepared for Today and the Future
Demonstrating the true nature of Changing the World from Here, our graduates enter the workforce prepared for today and the future. Graduates of the MAPC program apply their education to vast opportunities within the world of professional communication. From our classroom location in the Financial District of San Francisco, alumni have entered the tech sphere from big software companies to fast-paced start-ups. The San Francisco Bay Area is home to Biotech Bay, where alumni can lead communications for biomedical and pharmaceutical companies as well as care delivery systems. Alumni take our programs' world-class reputation and build careers in cities across America — and the world!
Graduates of our program serve as:
- Communication strategists, delivering on business goals through targeted, stakeholder relationships.
- Communication designers can create specialized information in multiple formats for diverse audiences using leading-edge technology platforms.
- Technical communicators, working to ensure the usability of products and services in all phases of the design process. They act as the voice of the user, advocating design features to ensure that the user's needs are met as well as working to ensure that the product or service has a strategic, competitive advantage in the market.
- Ethical communicators within organizations, bring a thorough understanding of ethical issues and decision-making to the workplace, including organizational communication and industrial communication linking organizations to their employees, customers, and consumers.
- Health or other industry advocates within their communities, connecting vital, personal stories with the media and creating stronger partnerships and campaigns to drive action. Graduates serve as spokespersons and leaders to help create healthier communities, acknowledging health equity and other challenges and opportunities facing America and the world.
- Continued graduate work, given the MAPC program’s theoretical training and applied concepts. With critical thinking and in-depth knowledge, students will be prepared for doctoral work in communications.