Applied Media Bachelor of Science Degree (BS)
Not all programs are offered for completion at each campus or through Berkeley College Online®. Please review the academic program pages (https://berkeleycollege.edu/academics/index.html) for information on where each program is offered. Additionally, all students may be required to take some courses at another campus or online. The Internship courses are only offered online.
SAMPLE PROGRAM SEQUENCE - APPLIED MEDIA
Course Requirements
MAJOR CORE COURSES
CIS1115 Computer Applications
3 Credits
Provides an introduction to computer technology with an emphasis on applications. Students learn to use software, such as Microsoft Windows, Word, PowerPoint, and Excel.
COM2000 Introduction to Communications
3 Credits
Introduces students to the fundamentals of human communication in its verbal and nonverbal manifestations. Students explore communication theories and techniques used in interpersonal, group, organizational, and mass media contexts to become a more flexible, engaged, and discerning individual in all forms of communication.
COM2010 Survey of Mass Communications
3 Credits
Examines how media works and the role it plays today. In addition to surveying the historical background on media in the United States, students explore the influence media has on the moral, social, and political mindset of individuals and groups. The course teaches media literacy, media criticism, and media repurposing.
APM2000 Introduction to Social Media
3 Credits
Surveys the ever-changing and dynamic world of social media, with special attention to its role in modern culture, its potential for marketing and social activism, and its positive and negative effects on users. In the course, students will examine a wide array of social media platforms, uncovering larger trends that may come and go as new platforms emerge.
Prerequisite: COM2010 Survey of Mass Communications
APM2010 Writing for Digital Media
3 Credits
Introduces students to the techniques, social importance, and ethics of writing in various digital mediums. Students will practice how to write impactful, purpose-driven messages for a virtual audience, considering the quality of the content and how that content connects to an overarching digital media strategy. They will hone their abilities to write clear and concise prose within a dynamic, ever-changing environment.
Prerequisite: ENG2205 Writing Through Literature
ENG3215 The Confident Speaker
3 Credits
Designed to help students strengthen their oral communication, public speaking, and listening skills. Students learn how to use language for greater impact, their voice as an instrument, and to craft and deliver well-organized audience-centered speeches that engage the senses and mind.
Prerequisite: ENG2215
APM3255 Media and Popular Culture
3 Credits
Introduces students to the shifting trends, ideas, and competing forces that will lay the foundation for the cultural battleground of the future. Designed to facilitate the recognition, understanding, utilization, and appreciation of the basic theories, approaches, topics, and issues within popular culture, and their critical connections to the various communication processes. The course covers the following concepts: popular culture, high/low culture, mass culture, cultural values, culture of dissatisfaction, resistance, and consumer culture.
Prerequisite: APM2000 Introduction to Social Media
APM3245 Media and Communications Ethics
3 Credits
Explores ethical issues in gathering, composing/producing, and disseminating media content. Students will examine professional and ethical standards, such as honesty and confidentiality, that guide decision-making, and cultivate a tolerance for disagreement. Students address real world cases involving media practitioners who faced ethical dilemmas. The course covers topics related to mass media, like the erosion of honesty, privacy, and civility in the age of social media, big data, and xenophobia.
Prerequisite: HUM2225 Introduction to Ethics
APM3265 Media Communication Law
3 Credits
This course will survey First Amendment issues involving freedom of speech and free press. It will also examine the laws pertaining to the communication industry with particular attention to issues of defamation, intellectual property, obscenity, political speech, and privacy.
COM3000 The Art of Interviewing
3 Credits
This course on interviewing will prepare beginning journalists, bloggers, social media professionals, public relations professionals, and researchers to conceive, set up, and execute interviews. The course covers interview and question preparation, source selection, techniques and exercises to gain effectiveness, conduct of the interview itself, and how to make the highest and best use of the material that sources provide. It also covers what can go wrong in an interview, how to ask hard questions, when to go off the record, and the ins and outs of difficult interviews.
Prerequisite: ENG2215
APM4460 Capstone Project
3 Credits
Provides a workshop for drafting and revising a communication strategy for a defined purpose from plan proposal to refined media products for a designated audience. Students will provide feedback to peers and use feedback from both peers and instructor mentors. This course culminates the program of study.
Prerequisite: Departmental permission
GRD1101 Photoshop and Digital Graphics
3 Credits
Explores the role of designing visual graphics. With the introduction of Adobe Photoshop, digital concepts, processes, and creativity, the course focus is to create original graphics for promotion and marketing materials.
GRD1102 Illustrator and Digital Graphics
3 Credits
A continuation from Photoshop and Digital Graphics. In this course, students will explore Photoshop and image manipulation techniques. We will introduce Adobe Illustrator for the use of print, and web services, original graphics for artboards, and marketing materials.
Prerequisite: GRD1101
GRD2240 Digital Publishing
3 Credits
Integrating type and images in digital page layouts and multiple-page projects. The emphasis will be on the application of industry standard software for both print and digital output. Software requirements: Adobe Suite
Prerequisite: GRD1102
GRD3395 Branding
3 Credits
Explores various processes and the translation of information in a visual format for data visualization in current media. Marketing trends and strategies are explored in the development of creative solutions to design problems. Students create functional design solutions for identity systems across multiple points of contact.
Prerequisite: GRD2240
GRD4425 Social Media Design
3 Credits
Introduces students to design applications and implementation of social media concepts from the lens of a User Interface and User Experience designer. The course will include Web/Mobile design tools, video, and or other light 2D graphics software for final project campaigns.
Prerequisite: GRD3395
MAJOR CONCENTRATION OPTION (12 credits) - Students choose one option
Option 1 - Digital and Social Media (12 credits)
MKT2223 Digital and Social Media Strategy
3 Credits
Explores current and emerging forms of digital and social media and how to leverage them to build brands and engage customers. Students will evaluate digital and social media against communication and marketing objectives and develop effective media plans.
MKT2247 Advertising Management
3 Credits
Provides students with a broad view of advertising principles and their relation to the marketing process. Students gain an understanding of the three key functional areas of advertising: account management, media planning, and creative design.
MKT3322 Digital Marketing: Strategy & Tactics
3 Credits
Provides an in-depth study of online marketing strategies and tactics. Students will learn advanced concepts and tools of digital marketing and apply these new skills to make business decisions. Emphasis is on website optimization, display advertising, Search Engine Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, Social Media Marketing, and Mobile Marketing.
Prerequisite: MKT2220
MKT4447 Marketing Metrics and Analytics
3 Credits
Marketing requires an understanding of data. Many successful business organizations use data to reliably make good decisions. This class will give you tools to make these decisions. It will also offer the theoretical understanding of data necessary for you to perform vital marketing functions and help make data-driven marketing decisions.
Prerequisite: MKT2220
Option 2 - Social and Cultural Responsibility (12 credits)
SOC3120 Corporate Social Responsibility
3 Credits
Examines the primary social responsibilities played by three types of institutions: businesses, governments, and nonprofit groups. Students will participate in a critical review and discussion of various perspectives on the meaning of Corporate Social Responsibility, its underlying philosophy, sustainable business practices, moral duties and obligations, and other related topics, as presented in this course.
HUM3355 Social Justice Issues
3 Credits
Focuses on western philosophies for justice in a society. Students explore debates from the courts of ancient Athens to the streets of present-day America to philosophically question how a society is arranged, opportunities for change, the distribution of wealth/power, and how morality is assessed.
SCI4410 Eco-Friendly Living
3 Credits
Incorporates the interconnected concepts of ecology, economy, and ethics to understand real, practical, sustainable solutions. Students will learn how their personal and professional decisions affect the planet as well as their own food security, health, finances and lives.
SCI3301 The Science of Addiction and Obsession
3 Credits
Explores both the biological and sociocultural components of addiction. This course will compare and contrast addictions that affect every individual regardless of socioeconomic status, race, or gender. Students will learn to assess addiction as a disease mediated by both environmental and genetic factors.
LIBERAL ARTS AND SCIENCE CORE COURSES
ENG1105 Writing and Research
3 Credits
An introduction to expository writing through a comprehensive survey of forms of composition. Students are taught to use words with precision and strengthen their understanding and application of grammatical and rhetorical principles. Students are encouraged to appreciate and incorporate the principles of academic and professional writing.
ENG2205 Writing Through Literature
3 Credits
Further develop the writing, reading, and interpretive abilities introduced in ENG1105 through critical engagement with literary texts from a myriad of genres.
Prerequisite: ENG1105
ENG2215 Public Speaking
3 Credits
Designed to help students improve oral communication skills. Emphasis is placed on identifying good and poor speech habits, techniques for improving speech, oral interpretation, effective speech planning and delivery, and interpersonal communication.
Prerequisite or Corequisite: ENG2205
ENG3316 The Confident Writer
3 Credits
Explores a wide variety of non-fiction writing genres, including personal profile, journalism, criticism, and more. Students build their reading, writing, and researching skills while also reinforcing the fundamental concepts and current developments associated with the areas of their respective majors.
Prerequisite: ENG2205
HUM2225 Introduction to Ethics
3 Credits
Introduces the study of ethics and moral philosophy, including its historical development, the major figures within that history, and ethical and moral issues that face us today. This course presents the perspectives of various schools of thought and encourages students’ own critical thinking on ethical and moral issues in dialogue with others.
MAT2215 Statistics I
3 Credits
Introduces statistical methods and procedures. Students become acquainted with the collection, analysis, and presentation of quantitative data. Topics include basic concepts of probability, frequency distributions, binomial distributions, sampling theory, hypothesis testing, and regression and correlation.
Prerequisite: CSK85 or placement-based score
SOC1123 First Year Experience
3 Credits
Explores the challenges students most frequently face in pursuing and achieving a college degree. Students will identify their own perceived challenges, share critical insights to meeting them, and implement their own plan of action to address and overcome such challenges.
SOC2110 AI-Powered Communication
3 Credits
Explore emerging Artificial Intelligence (AI) trends and their social and ethical implications. Analyze the impact of AI on content generation, creativity, media production, and employment. With a focus on academic and professional integrity, students will develop and apply AI literacy skills in a variety of contexts.
SOC3110 Create an Equitable Workforce
3 Credits
Explores power constructs in everyday interactions in the workplace through the lens of race, gender, and other categories of identity with a focus on the challenges of workplace relationships involving coworkers, supervisors, and customers/clients. Some major skill areas covered in the course include recognizing conscious and unconscious biases and micro-aggressions, managing conflict related to various biases, and successfully working on diverse teams.
SOC3310 Intercultural Communication
3 Credits
Introduces the various cultural influences on communication. Emphasizes the obstacles and portals to effective communication. Students study the communication styles of different cultural groups and learn to apply cultural perspectives to their daily interactions in business and in their private lives.
English Elective - 3 Credits
Humanities Elective - 3 Credits
Mathematics/Science Elective - 3 Credits
Science Elective - 3 Credits
Liberal Arts Electives** - 18 Credits
Free Electives (12 Credits) - If a Major Concentration Option is not selected.
**15 credits of Liberal Arts Electives must be at the 3000/4000 level.
120 SEMESTER CREDIT HOURS REQUIRED FOR GRADUATION