Accelerated MA Program

Learn and Engage Banner. The background consists of little lights that form a fist breaking through a glass. The image is in black and white.

The Department of Media Studies offers an Accelerated MA in Media & Social Justice for eligible Media Studies majors and, on a case-by-case basis, majors in other humanities and social science disciplines.

If your interests as an undergraduate gravitate toward the ways that the media are linked to forms of social inequality and injustice, the MA in Media & Social Justice will interest you. Joining the Accelerated MA program allows you to take graduate courses focused on unjust and unequal forms of media power and ways to confront them.

Impact the issues you care about with an Accelerated MA in Media Studies

  • Take MA courses while completing your BA
  • MA credits count toward the BA and MA
  • Pay for MA courses at the undergraduate rate
  • Get your MA in as little as a year after your BA

 

How it Works

Students admitted to the Accelerated MA program can take up to four MA electives while completing the BA and have these electives (up to a total of 12 credits) count toward the BA and the MA in Media & Social Justice. For Media Studies majors, these graduate credits count as electives for your major. For students in majors other than Media Studies, these graduate credits count towards the 120 total credits required of all Queens College bachelor’s degrees (not as part of your undergraduate major).

Students are admitted to the Accelerated MA Program with the expectation that they will prove capable of continuing on to the MA program after they complete their undergraduate studies. Students may be approved for entrance to the MA program based on successful performance in graduate-level courses and a completed MA application including an essay and two letters of recommendation. Students in the Accelerated MA program are under no obligation to apply for MA admission and are not guaranteed acceptance to the MA program if they apply.

 

Who Can Apply

Students with a minimum 3.5 GPA in their major and an overall GPA of 3.0 and who are in their upper sophomore or junior year (or approximately when students have reached 45-75 undergraduate credits and before reaching 120 credits). Prior to reaching 120 credits, the 12 credits of graduate courses will be billed at the undergraduate rate.

 

How to Apply

Log into the Accelerated Degrees Online Application System using your QC username and password (CAMS account credentials, not CUNYFirst).

Submit the following information as part of your application:

  • A 500-word personal statement describing your career goals and explaining how the social justice theme emphasized in the MA program influences these career goals. Please upload the personal statement with your application.
  • The names of two Media Studies faculty members who can serve as your references (no formal letters of recommendation are required). Provide the two faculty members’ names in the section titled “Name of Reference” in the online application.

 

For More Information

Interested students should contact the MA Director for more information.