The Bachelor of Arts in Communication Studies degree prepares students for careers in the various communication professions, as well as a wide variety of occupations that place a premium on excellent communication skills. In addition, many Communication Studies graduates go on to earn advanced degrees in disciplines such as communication, psychology, sociology, and law. The Communication Studies curriculum draws from the traditions of both the humanities and the social sciences, and includes a wide array of courses investigating the nature, processes and effects of human communication.

Additional Information

• Missions Goals and Learning Objectives 
• Communication Studies Course Descriptions
• Degree Flowchart and Curriculum Sheet (Catalog Years 2022 - 2026 and earlier)
• Degree Flowchart (Catalog Year 2026 - 2028)
• Cal Poly Choice of Catalogs Policy
• Office of the Registrar Change of Catalog Request

Overview of the COMS major

Your journey through Communication Studies (COMS) begins with COMS 1100: Introduction to the COMS Studies Major. This will help you understand the major and the various subject areas that make up the discipline of Communication Studies.

From there, you will take several 2000-level classes to explore the subfields within communication, including small group, interpersonal, and organizational communication, as well as rhetoric, media, performance studies, and argumentation.

After completing these classes, along with our general theory course, you will learn about multiple methods for studying communication.

Once you move into your upper division coursework (3000- and 4000-level classes), you will have more choice in what classes to take, guided by your chosen focus area. In other words, at the lower division you will explore the breadth of Communication Studies. At the upper division, you will focus your studies on aspects of the discipline that are most important to you. 

One of the exciting additions with the new curriculum is the creation of Focus Areas. A focus area is a collection of courses that have some overlap or similarities in the themes and topics they discuss. They relate to particular areas of emphasis within communication studies and often align with particular professional pathways. 

Students often comment on how broad Communication Studies is and that’s true. As you will learn in COMS 1100, the discipline studies a lot of different aspects of communication. The focus areas help students identify sub-specialties that exist within this broad major. 

The five focus areas are:

• Culture, Identity and Power (Faculty Advisor: Dr. Megan Lambertz-Berndt)
• Media and Technology (Faculty Advisor: Dr. David Askay)
• Relationships, Organizations, and Socialization (Faculty Advisor: Dr. Anu Dhillon)
• Persuasion and Social Influence (Faculty Advisor: Dr. Jnan Blau)
• Politics, Advocacy and Civic Engagement (Faculty Advisor: Dr. Bethany Conway)

Students also have the option to create a Generalist Focus Area by choosing classes from any of the Focus Area Lists.

To complete a Focus Area, you will take 18 semester units (or 24 quarter units) chosen from a list of approved courses for that area (click on the links for each Focus Area above to see the list of classes). Classes do appear in more than one Focus Area.