VANDERBILT OFFERS NEW MAJOR IN SCIENCE COMMUNICATIONS

Starting this fall, a new interdisciplinary major in the communications of science and technology will be offered at Vanderbilt University.

The object of the program is to produce graduates with the skills not only to understand how science and engineering are done, but also to describe them accurately to lay audiences. In keeping with this objective, the curriculum is interdisciplinary, requiring a balance between communications and English courses and classes in science and engineering. The communications courses are designed to provide students with basic communication skills, while the English courses concentrate on improving writing skills. Both oral and written communications are covered while allowing students to emphasize one medium over the others. To provide breadth, the students are also expected to take courses in two different fields of science. To provide depth, they must take at least two upper level courses in a single science.

An important part of the new major is an internship program, developed with a grant from the Dreyfus Foundation. Majors will have an opportunity to take a series of internships to augment their classroom education. During the first semester of their junior year, they can intern in a research laboratory on campus, where they get the opportunity to work on a research project and to learn how research is done. During the second semester, they can intern with the office of science and research communications, where they will write feature articles on their laboratory experiences for various campus publications. In the summer before their senior year, the students have an opportunity to take an off-campus internship working for organizations such as the Discovery Channel, CNN, NASA, the National Institutes of Health, and the American Chemical Society.

For more information, visit http://sitemason.vanderbilt.edu/cst/degrees.

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(Source: news release)