Undergraduate Program

“How often do you get the opportunity to be taught by a former MLB player who’s involved in social justice work?” asks Alexys Ogorek C’20, a sophomore Communication major. Her rhetorical question elicits nods from the students sitting around her, all of whom are flush with excitement.

This year, 16 Penn seniors wrote an honors thesis and/or a Communication and Public Service Capstone Thesis as a required part of their ComPS concentration. All will graduate with honors at Annenberg’s Communication major graduation ceremony this month.

On April 27, these students presented the culmination of their year of work on their Communication theses at a poster session held in the Annenberg School Plaza Lobby. The students had previously presented their theses to a panel of faculty and fellow students.

When best friends and then-high school sophomores Bevan Cohen and Sabrina Epstein started snapping photos of their lunches around New York City, it just seemed like fun to post them to Instagram. They had no idea that they were on the road to becoming full-fledged Instagram influencers. But 3,700 photos and 313,000 followers later, @eastcoastfoodies has become a trademarked brand.

Has he tweeted yet?

That’s the only thing on Ashley Parker’s mind when her alarm goes off at 6am. He, of course, is President Donald Trump.

If he hasn’t, she hits the snooze button and goes back to sleep. If he has, she pulls her laptop into bed and begins her day as one of the six White House reporters for the Washington Post.

Through the Senior Honors Thesis course, three Annenberg Communication majors received funding to study graffiti along the U.S./Mexico border, how the news portrays Latinx immigrants, and the virality of online video advertising. 

Annenberg’s undergraduate courses are taught both by the standing faculty and by notable practitioners in the field of Communication. This semester, the Annenberg School welcomes two new undergraduate lecturers: Doug Glanville, baseball analyst, author, and former Major League Baseball player, and Clovis Bergére, Ph.D., visual ethnographer.

What characterizes effective messaging campaigns? What makes some people more likely to share ideas? How would we know if a campaign is working? This semester, Professor Emily Falk offered a new undergraduate course to arm an emerging generation of researchers with the skills to conduct rigorous quantitative research that would allow them to answer these questions and a wide range of others.

Over the course of 21 years, Professor Amy Jordan has taught more than 3,000 students and become a well-respected and beloved faculty member to countless students, faculty, and staff members.

It was an emotional occasion on Friday as Jordan, Associate Dean for Undergraduate Studies and Adjunct Full Professor at the Annenberg School for Communication, delivered her last-ever class lecture at Penn. Starting in January, she will be a professor at Rutgers University.

Annenberg in Washington (AIW), a summer internship program for Communication majors, provides students first-hand experience in how communication is used in public service. Students receive a $6,000 stipend to support their living expenses as they participate in internships at government, political, nonprofit, advocacy, media, and private organizations in the nation’s capital. They can then receive course credit by enrolling in the summer or fall internship course (COMM 491).

Penn Media Scholars in China (PMSC), a new summer institute directed and led by Professor Guobin Yang, recently took eight Penn undergraduate students to Beijing and Hangzhou to study media industries, institutions, and citizens’ everyday media practices.

From June 5-30, PMSC gave students a first-hand understanding of the rapidly growing and developing media industry in China through site visits, interactions with media professionals, and conversations with students.