Advance Your Career with a Strategic Communication Graduate Degree
To stand out, today’s professional communicators must master a broad skill set encompassing creativity, critical thinking, strategic analysis, ethics, and practical application. In our flexible Portland-based master’s program, you’ll learn how to rise above the noise in a media-saturated world.
You’ll explore traditional and emerging platforms, technologies, and approaches for telling authentic stories. Then you’ll put what you learn into immediate practice by developing strategic communication plans for your employer or clients. And you’ll do it all as part of a tight-knit professional cohort dedicated to bettering their careers, their companies, their communities, and their world.
What You Can Do with a Strategic Communication Master's Degree
In today’s content-inundated landscape, strategic communication is crucial to the success of businesses, government, and nonprofits alike. Our graduate program teaches you the practices and tools that are revolutionizing communication and how to use them. You’ll build the mass communication skills you need to lead in this rapidly evolving field. Recent graduates have landed their dream jobs at major companies like Intel, Oracle, and Spotify. See what three of our graduates are up to now:
Apply Now
Applications are open now! The first round deadline to apply for the 2024 cohort is November 15, 2023. Scholarship applicants should consider applying by January 15 to ensure an admission decision before the February 15 UO scholarship deadline.
Questions? Reach out to us at sojcmasters@uoregon.edu.
Virtual Classes, Accelerated Pathway, and other Flexible Options
It’s more convenient than ever to take your communication career to the next level! We now offer multiple options to help you build the skills to lead in this fast-changing field, on your turf and on your terms.
Attend a Virtual Info Session
There’s a lot to learn before you commit to a graduate program, and we know you have questions. Sign up for a virtual info session to talk to the program director and learn about:
- The program’s structure and timeline
- What you can expect from courses and class projects
- The faculty you’ll be working with
If you would like to visit the SOJC Portland campus and Oregon Reality Lab, email sojcmasters@uoregon.edu to schedule a visit.
As the communication specialist for a Portland-based nonprofit focused on ending houselessness, Maeve Connor ’22 hears many inaccurate perceptions that she wants to dispel. While taking Social Change Communication through the Strategic Communication Master’s program, she learned strategies to inform the public about the underlying causes of houselessness, evidenced-based solutions, and how to become an effective advocate for change.
Danny Pimentel joined SOJC Portland in fall 2020 to inspire the next generation of strategic communicators with his passion for using immersive media to make positive change.
“I plan to keep creating impactful XR content that can be used by organizations dedicated to wildlife conservation to further their missions…. In creating the content and experimentally testing it in the OR Lab, I hope to create theoretical and practical insights into the psychological mechanisms through which media platforms contribute to pro-environmental attitude and behavior change.”
In the Strategic Communication Master’s program, Danny teaches a wide array of classes, from marketing to quantitative research, that help students make real-world impacts.
Award-Winning Student Work
Our students are setting the bar across the nation with their work. For two years running, Strategic Communication Master’s students won the prestigious, national Arthur W. Page Society’s Jack Koten Page Principles Case Study Grand Prize in corporate communications. Another UO student team came in second place in the 2021 competition.
2021
Grand Prize
Masks are the new boarding pass: Delta Air Lines implements strict mask mandate, by Carrie Wanous, Maddie Tew, and Karina Peterson
2021
2nd Place
NBA Players’ Strike: How the NBA responded to an unprecedented work stoppage following the Jacob Blake shooting, by Andy Jobanek, Isaac Bisilki, and Steven Lozano
2020
Grand Prize
Dick’s Sporting Goods enters the gun debate: Revising the playbook, by Alyson Morris, Hanna Neuschwander, and Rui Zhao
Network with World-Class Communication Leaders
Our Strategic Communication Leadership Network brings together some of the top communication leaders in the world—executives from companies such as Microsoft, Nike, and Edelman Public Relations—to network with students, discuss the state of the industry, and guide our program’s offerings. This unique group helps us prepare our graduates for successful careers.
Your Investment
Tuition for our flexible master’s program is tied to the number of terms you complete and varies based on the pace you choose. For a customized estimate of tuition and other costs of graduate school, use the UO graduate costs calculator.
Cost of attendance is the estimated cost to attend the UO for the academic year. The Office of Student Financial Aid and Scholarships provides estimates for cost of attendance information that goes beyond tuition and fees, and includes: living expenses (housing and food), books/supplies/equipment, transportation, and miscellaneous personal expenses.
This program is eligible for federal financial aid and the G.I. Bill. Check with your employer to see if they have a tuition-matching or reimbursement program.
We’re excited to offer classes at our new location in the Concordia neighborhood in Northeast Portland starting in fall 2023. But you can choose the course modalities that work best for you, whether that’s 100% virtual or hybrid classes, night and weekend courses in person, or an accelerated pace to shorten your time to a degree. In addition to our library, classrooms, meeting spaces, and studios, SOJC Portland is also home to state-of-the-art multimedia equipment—available for student checkout—and the Oregon Reality immersive experience lab.