Available classes (just select the term and then Journalism) and the class catalog (descriptions of all of the official classes available in the program)
How to become a Major:
Admission to the major is open to all students who have been admitted to UH Mānoa.
Download and complete the Declaration of Major form (or Double Major form). Email a scan/photo of your completed form to [email protected], and we’ll take it from there.
The general email for our program: [email protected], and phone number: (808) 956-8881.
More information below on the following topics:
1. Required classes to earn the Journalism major
2. Upper-Division elective classes required to earn the Journalism major
3. Trust the humans in the Journalism program, not STAR’s AI
4. Model schedules: Ideas about how to navigate through the program.
5. Advising: Help us to help you
6. Keeping connected: LinkedIn; free online access to news media sources
7. Scholarships and Internships
8. Double Majoring? Or Study Abroad? Or both?
1. Required classes to earn the Journalism major — We refined our major’s curriculum most recently for the Fall of 2022.
Our program requires these 7 classes (Jour 150, 200, and 250 as well as a rotation of Jour 360/365/460 as well as Jour 307/330 typically are offered every semester; Jour 300 and Jour 481 are mostly Spring-only this point).
[ ] Jour 150 – Journalism and Society
[ ] Jour 200 – Introduction to Multimedia Journalism
[ ] Jour 250 – Media Writing
[ ] Jour 300 – Reporting
[ ] Jour 330 – Video Journalism (or we will also substitute Jour 307 Photojournalism for this requirement; just ask us to approve that for you via a memo)
[ ] Jour 460 – Media Ethics (or we will also substitute Jour 360 Journalism History and Trends OR Jour 365 Communication & Law for this requirement; just ask us to approve that for you via a memo)
[ ] Jour 481 – Innovation and Entrepreneurship in Journalism
2. Upper-Division Elective classes required to earn the Journalism major — In addition to the 7 required classes above, Jour majors also must take 3 Upper-Division Journalism courses.
Any 300- or 400-level Jour courses qualify for this requirement, including internships, practicum (Ka Leo work), and directed studies.
Popular electives include:
• Jour 307 Photojournalism
• Jour 323 Sports Media
• Jour 325 Magazine Writing
and all sorts of Workshop / Special Topics classes that we offer to keep our curriculum fresh and relevant.
3. Trust the humans in the Journalism program, not STAR’s AI
To put it bluntly, please rely on the Journalism faculty for advising about Journalism classes, because we know the program backward and forward. Every year, we learn about students suffering from advising mistakes — including having to take extra semesters to graduate, and not taking advantage of all of the great opportunities in the program — not because people/AI systems outside the program are incompetent but because the program is dynamic and ever-adapting to our field. We are constantly putting new ideas into the curriculum and responding to the rapid changes in Journalism. No one knows the Journalism program better than us. So we highly, highly recommend contacting Journalism faculty for advising.
Gen-Ed advisers are critical for Gen-Ed advice (see below, Section 5); the AI in STAR can be helpful for general ideas or suggestions, but Journalism faculty members are the primary source to understand how the Journalism program works and especially how it works for each individual student. So, no matter what STAR says, communicate with your faculty, too.
Let’s use an example. STAR will not necessarily recommend that students take Jour 300 in the semester following Jour 250, or Jour 307/330 in the semester following Jour 200, but both of those combinations are designed to build on each other. If a student waits a semester or two, with a summer in-between, a lot of learning gets lost in the process, and we want to keep all of that learning in place and build from it. So if you have completed Jour 200 in one semester, for example, you definitely should take Jour 307/or/Jour 330 the next semester. If you have taken Jour 250, then you definitely should take Jour 300 the next semester, to build those complementary skills.
4. Model schedules. Ideas about how to navigate through the program …
Conceptually, here is a way to envision the program, its foci, its objectives, and clear paths through it:
Start with the foundational classes (3 required):
Jour 150 – Journalism and Society (News Literacy), Jour 200 – Intro to Multimedia Journalism, and Jour 250 – Media Writing. Those three classes (usually offered every semester) illustrate the curricular approach we are taking, mixing critical theoretical ideas with practical skills in writing, reporting, and multimedia production. You can take all three in one semester, if you like, which then opens your class choices to most of the rest of the curriculum.
After 250, the writing and reporting classes (2 required):
Jour 300 – Reporting (usually offered every semester but might be restricted to once a year), and Jour 481 – Innovation and Entrepreneurship (Spring only). Jour 300 is a critical prerequisite not only for Jour 481 but also for success in many of the electives. The sooner you can plan to take Jour 250 and then Jour 300, the sooner you will have the foundational skills needed to succeed in all of the Jour classes.
After 200, the media production class is (1 required):
Jour 330 – Video Journalism (or talk with your adviser about substituting Jour 307 Photojournalism). We offer a formal track with Jour 330, oriented toward video and an experimental track, which we are piloting right now, with the option to focus on photojournalism. If you choose the photojournalism path, just notify your Jour adviser, and we will note this choice in your STAR account.
After 150, the ethics class is (1 required):
Jour 460 – Media Ethics (usually offered every semester; we also are offering a one-semester pilot with Jour 360 History in Fall 2022, if you want to substitute it, let me know).
And three electives (3 required): Any other 300- or 400-level class we offer. We offer a lot of internships, which can be used for those credits. We also have many other great electives to help you build your skills in Journalism, including on such topics as social media, public relations, Journalism history, photojournalism, and magazine writing. Just check each semester’s schedule to see what’s offered.
If you are a transfer student, on a tight-two year plan, here is a recommended schedule:
Fall 1
Jour 150, 200, and 250
Spring 1
Jour 300
Jour 307/OR 330
Fall 2
Jour 360/365/OR 460
Elective 1
Elective 2
Spring 2
Jour 481
Elective 3
There just are not many other ways to pull it off, except moving those electives (and 460) around a bit.
If you have 3-4 years to do it, there is more flexibility, like this in the 3-year window. …
Fall 1
Jour 150
Jour 200
Jour 250
Spring 1
Jour 300
Jour 307/OR 330
Fall 2
Elective 1
Elective 2
Spring 2
Elective 3
Fall 3
Jour 360/365/OR 460
Spring 3
Jour 481
5. Advising: Help us to help you – If you have any questions, or confusion, or just want to check-in and register your progress toward the degree, we highly recommend that you participate in an advising session with us. We are here to help, but we can’t help you if you don’t connect with us.
UH has multiple advising centers, advisers trained for different skills, and all of the university and major requirements can become quite confusing for students, especially when they get different advice from different people. So here is what we recommend:
For all Journalism-related questions, ask the Journalism faculty members.
Those are:
Dr. Brett Oppegaard, [email protected]
and Dr. Julien Gorbach, [email protected]
For all Gen-Ed or non-Journalism-related questions, ask the ACCESS advisers (Dean Hall 3, in the basement). As a student in the College of Social Sciences, you have access to the ACCESS office, which specializes in CSS programs. Advisers in this office will help you to make sure that you are on track to graduate and meet all of your requirements.
Any of the ACCESS advisers can answer any questions about the Journalism major and even recommend some Focus designation classes to you.
Those are:
Jason Higa, [email protected]
Jennifer Oshiro, [email protected]
Kalei Keolanui, [email protected]
or Dawn Nishida, [email protected]
If you are planning to graduate within the next academic year? You need to complete the Major Requirement Form and meet with the ACCESS staff to ensure and verify you have all of the credits you need.
6.Keeping connected: We figure you have the social part of social media already figured out. So we instead want to connect you to Journalism jobs, internships, events, and UH Journalism classmates and alumni, via LinkedIN:https://www.linkedin.com/company/journalism-uh-manoa.
We also know you want to keep up on the news; so UH has a deal for free online access to The New York Times (follow this link and procedure), and the UH Journalism Program has secured free online access for its majors only to The Honolulu Star-Advertiser (follow this link and procedure, using the access code S0001335478300).
7. Scholarships and Internships: Our program is well-supported by scholarships and media organizations in the state who want to work with our students on internships.
In summary, …
Scholarships. We offer many via the UH Journalism Program, including the opportunities to apply for the general Journalism scholarships twice a year (check your emails for these opportunities around February and October). We have an additional link, just below this one, on The Mirror, that focuses just on Scholarships. There are many others of interest to our students, who have won scholarships in recent years from many organizations and corporations, including the Asian American Journalists Association, Native American Journalists Association, Facebook, etc.
Internships: We want you to complete as many internships as you can, to get a great sense of the life of a working Journalist.
Some common (and high-quality internships/fellowships) are:
• The SPJ Hawaii Internships (Paid, Deadline: ~late March)
• Dow Jones News Fund Internships (Paid, Deadline: ~Mid-November)
• SPJ Future Leaders Academy / SPJ Student Leadership Institute (Deadline: March)
We have an additional link, just below this one, on The Mirror, that focuses just on Internships.
8. Double Majoring? Or Study Abroad? Or both? Journalism majors are ambitious, engaged, and can do it all. We have had great successes with our students double-majoring (we are considered the “friendliest double major” on campus because of our flexible curriculum and supportive attitude about it). We also highly support our students doing a Study Abroad, and we are especially excited about that if our students can study Journalism at universities in other countries. In short, we are aiming to help you become the biggest and best-prepared person you can become. If you want to do it academically, we want to support you doing it.
