Communication Arts Majors with Digital Studies Certificates Take on the Media Industries

Thinking about adding a Digital Studies Certificate to your degree? See how some of our Communication Arts Majors are putting their Digital Studies skills into practice!

L. Malik Anderson

L. Malik Anderson graduated from UW-Madison in the summer of 2018 with a double major in Communication Arts (on the Radio-TV-Film track) and Journalism (with an emphasis in Reporting). He now works as an Associate Producer for WYNC/New York Public Radio.

He used his Digital Studies certificate to produce a pilot for a comedy series. He still uses the skills he learned in Professor Eric Hoyt’s Com Arts 468: Producing for Internet TV and Video class, which prepared him to write and revise a business plan for his project.

Read the interview here.

Mei Li Brown

Mei Li Brown graduated from UW-Madison in the winter of 2017 with a major in Communication Arts (on the Radio-TV-Film track). She now works as a Marketing Coordinator for the Wisconsin Foundation and Alumni Association.

She recalls how the digital studies certificate taught her effective digital-first tactics and critical thinking about the user-experience, and she fondly remembers her experience with the Internet and Society Freshman Interest Group (FIG), which introduced her to the Digital Studies certificate and her first Communication Arts class with Professor Jeremy Morris.

Read the interview here.

Chris Caporale

Chris Caporale graduated from UW-Madison in the spring of 2015 with a double major in Communication Arts (on the Radio-TV-Film track) and Journalism (with an emphasis in Reporting). He now works as a Communications Partner II at Alliant Energy.

The Digital Studies certificate and his Comm Arts major prepared him not only for his first career in journalism, but also for making the shift to marketing and communications in 2020. During his time at UW-Madison, Chris learned skills to aid him in the technical components of his roles, like integrating analytics into decision-making or utilizing content management systems.

Read the interview here.

Sarah Godfrey

Sarah Godfrey graduated from UW-Madison in the winter of 2017 with a major in Communication Arts (on the Radio-TV-Film track). She now works as a Media Specialist at Promote Local, as well as a Freelance Photographer.

She remembers how helpful the Digital Studies certificate was in preparing her for her current work, and she notes how much she enjoyed taking classes like Comm Arts 465 (Editing and Post-Production), which expanded her skills with Adobe (and even let her try her hand at editing narrative film!).

Read the interview here.

Alec Huggins

Alec Huggins graduated from UW-Madison in the spring of 2018 with a major in Communication Arts (on the Radio-TV-Film track). He now works as a video creative at Kikoff.

Alec appreciates the high degree of relevance his Digital Studies and Communication Arts classes had to understanding our current media landscape (and he imagines that things have changed even more since the introduction of new forms of social media, like TikTok!). He especially enjoyed Comm Arts 355: Introduction to Media Production, which taught him not only how rigorous creating something can be, but how rewarding it is to have completed it.

Read the interview here.