Journalism Program Requirements

Degree Requirements

The Journalism Program at Northwestern University in Qatar requires students to take 32 Northwestern-provided or –accepted courses to graduate. Many students will want to take more; they may take additional courses, but only with the consent of the senior associate dean.

Of the minimum 32 courses, 20 must be in liberal arts classes and 12 must be in journalism.  You may take more than 12 journalism courses, but no fewer than 20 non-journalism.

Journalism courses

A minimum of 12 journalism courses are required to graduate.  The list below outlines required courses and when they are generally taken (indicated by the year and semester in parenthesis. Thus, 2/1 is a course taken in the first semester of the second year.) 

  • Introduction to 21st Century Media (1/1)
  • Editing, Writing and Multimedia Storytelling (1/2)
  • Visual Journalism (2/1)
  • Enterprise Reporting in Diverse Communities (2/2)
  • Storytelling: Interactive News (3-1)
  • Journalism Residency Preparation, a five-week intensive course (3-2)
    The course content depends upon the kind of residency the student is to pursue. As an example, a student who elects a broadcast residency will be given special training in television news presentation and production.
  • Law and Ethics, a five-week intensive course (3-2)
  • Journalism Residency, ten weeks of intensive full-time study that count as two courses (3-2)
  • A minimum of three elective courses, chosen from such possible offerings as: Magazine Writing; Broadcast Production and Presentation; Advanced Online Storytelling; Public Relations; Literary Journalism; TV Documentary; or Special Topics in such areas as Business Journalism; Environmental Journalism; Education Reporting; or Health-Science Journalism.

Courses in other fields

In order to ensure that graduates of the program have pursued liberal arts studies preparing them to be informed journalists, 20 of the required 32 courses must be in subjects other than journalism. Those 21 courses must include the following distribution requirements:

  • A concentration of five courses (including three upper division courses) in one discipline (e.g. economics, political science, a natural science, philosophy, etc.). This ensures that graduates have a deep understanding of at least one field other than journalism. The five courses taken to fulfill the concentration may include courses taken to fulfill the other distribution requirements set forth below.
  • Two Math/Science courses (one must be Statistics)
  • Two Political Science courses
  • One Economics course
  • Two History courses (treating two different eras/areas or topics.)
  • Two Literature courses (treating at least two different genres or literary traditions)
  • One Philosophy or Religion course
  • One Art or Art History (including, possibly, Acting, Art Appreciation or Music Appreciation)