> Courses

Classes

Classes are designed to challenge your thinking and develop your professional skills. You’ll leave each class with a unique set of tools to approach new communications challenges.

Tailor your experience to your career goals by focusing on one of eight areas of specialization. Use the search widget below to sort classes by quarter, specialization, instructor and degree track for each quarter. Get a comprehensive view of the full academic year in our Course Guide.

View the University of Washington Academic Calendar for important dates, including quarter start and end dates, registration dates and deadlines, and campus holidays.

Registration numbers (SLNs) are located on the Time Schedule. Please read the Department’s statement on internet resource requirements for access to courses.

COMMLD 540: The Power of Revision

(

Baltus

)

- 2021-2022 | Spring 2022

Track Neutral | Meets Professional Writing Requirement | 3 Credits
Tuesdays 3/29 – 5/31 6:00PM – 8:20PM | CMU 242 | Partially In-Person
Registration SLN: 12608

Course Description:

No matter what kind of writing you do, editing skills are essential to producing your best work. In this course, experienced writers will learn a rigorous, methodical approach to revision that transforms a rough draft into a compelling finished piece. You’ll gain the awareness and control you need to diagnose and address problems, develop ideas and themes, create structure, and craft a story. You’ll also hone your ability at the line level, learning ways to make your writing clearer and more precise by eliminating clichés, clunky phrases, and extraneous words. As an editing workshop, this course emphasizes the importance of giving and receiving kind, productive feedback. It focuses on longer-form texts for public audiences, such as blog posts, executive op-eds, and news releases, though its principles are applicable to all forms of writing and creative iteration.

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COMMLD 520B: Qualitative Research for Social Media Marketing

(

Wang

)

- 2024-2025 | Winter 2025

MCDM Elective | Meets Research Methods Requirement | 5 Credits
Tuesdays 1/7 – 3/11, 6:00pm – 9:50pm | CMU 230
Registration SLN: 12709

Course Description

From selling the newest runway fashions to promoting donations to Greenpeace, successful online marketing campaigns and product launches often start with well planned qualitative research. This course offers a qualitative methodological perspective on how to conduct interviews and focus groups. This course explains the who, what, why and how of qualitative research with practical applications for those professionally interested in marketing, branding, and even user experience as well. Students will work throughout the quarter to design and implement their own qualitative research project.

Meets Research Methods Requirement.

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COMMLD 520D: Product Marketing

(

)

- Current Quarter | 2025-2026 | Spring 2026

MCDM Elective | 5 Credits
Tuesdays 3/31 – 6/2, 6:00pm – 9:50pm | Room on Time Schedule
Registration SLN: 12409

Course Description:

This course explores how modern organizations bring products to market by connecting customer insight, storytelling, and strategy. Students will learn the core functions of product marketing within technology and SaaS organizations and examine how effective collaboration among product, sales, marketing, and customer success teams drives successful product launches. Through hands-on projects and real-world case studies, students will practice applying research, storytelling, and data-driven decision-making to launch and promote products that resonate with diverse audiences and deliver measurable results.

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COMMLD 521: Digital Media Branding & Marketing

(

)

- 2025-2026 | Summer 2026

MCDM Elective | 5 Credits
Wednesdays 6/24 – 8/19, 6:00pm – 9:50pm | Online
Registration SLN: 10724

Course Description

This course is designed for students who will be utilizing their education and experience in the marketing career tracks or in leadership functions where an understanding of marketing is critical. The focus of the course will be on how to build a brand online or extend a legacy brand digitally by applying marketing fundamentals and examining how the most interesting and dynamic brands operate today. We will simulate brand management and building campaigns for real-world brands and explore how they reach target customers to meet objectives and participate in online culture. While online platforms have offered us many more opportunities and “shiny objects” to reach and communicate with customers, the fundamental marketing skills and theories don’t change much or quickly. Learning to be strategic about how to apply these fundamentals will allow students to remain flexible and relevant.

This class is a good match for students who:

• want to build expansive, omni-channel marketing strategies and tactics for brand building

• want to develop a CMO view of brand management and building marketing capabilities

• want to learn to create a portfolio-level brand plan

Honestly, this class felt like years of experience packed in ten weeks. As someone who has worked with marketers but has never taken any marketing courses before this one, my perception of branding and digital marketing evolved constantly week by week. Having theoretical and practical experience throughout this course truly gave me a well-rounded experience. —previous student, Digital Media Branding & Marketing

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COMMLD 520B: Principles of Marketing

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- 2026-2027 | Autumn 2026

Open Elective | 5 Credits
Mondays 10/05 – 12/14, 6:00pm – 9:50pm | Rooms on Time Schedule
Registration SLN: 22780

Course Description

This course provides a foundational understanding of marketing principles and their application within business, nonprofit, and public-sector organizations. Students will learn through the lens of integrated marketing, a key skill in today’s marketing landscape. Our focus will be on understanding the key elements of a marketing strategy, including goal setting, audience identification, planning, and landscape analysis. Students will learn practical and commonly-used tools like SWOT analyses, stakeholder maps, brand positioning exercises, and messaging frameworks. 

Building on this foundation, the course will also explore elements of brand and behavior change marketing, with real-world applications in areas such as public health, sustainability, and social impact. Students will complete the course with increased confidence in designing and executing strategies that work across public relations, creative, digital, and operational functions in complex organizations.

Through lectures, case studies, guest speakers, in-class activities, and group projects, students will connect theory with practice, based on their areas of interest and expertise. Students will develop portfolio-level plans to support their career goals. This class is a fit for students who plan to pursue more advanced coursework, and those with an interest in marketing, communications, public affairs, or brand strategy careers where cross-functional collaboration is essential.

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COMMLD 563: Multicultural Marketing: Creating Equitable and Inclusive Communications

(

Park

)

- 2021-2022 | Autumn 2021

MCCN Track | 5 Credits
Saturdays 10/02, 10/16, 10/30, 11/13, 12/04 9:00AM – 5:00PM PDT | CMU 242
Registration SLN: 13058

Course Description:

This course will take a close look at the evolution of multicultural marketing. We will explore how agencies and companies have adapted, pivoted and transformed how we engage with diverse audiences. You’ll learn how to build marketing campaigns that is rooted in principles of diversity, equity and inclusion and is responsive to the increasingly diverse marketplace.

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COMMLD 570 B: Leadership at All Levels

(

Myers

)

- 2021-2022 | Autumn 2021

Track Neutral | 3 Credits
Wednesdays 09/29-12/08, 6:00PM – 8:20PM PDT | CMU 230
Registration SLN: 13061

Course Description:

Leadership shows up everywhere, every day–and it is open to us all. Building on the Comm Lead leadership coursework, this course will take the theoretical development of one’s leadership style and bring it into practice with one’s work style. Classes will focus on mini-workshops around the following topics: decision-making processes, presentation skills, practical communications, how-to be a team player (including how-to run a meeting, how-to write an email), and drafting your optimum work experience. Students will complete the class knowing how to address bias and success inhibitors within any organization; develop skills for collaborative and successful leadership at any level; and understand how to empower their workplace for everyone. Guest speakers will share stories from leadership perspectives at different companies and how they approach their own development and empowerment.

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COMMLD 544: Professional Short-Form Writing

(

Tomasic

)

- 2021-2022 | Spring 2022

Track Neutral | Meets Professional Writing Requirement | 3 Credits
Wednesdays 3/30 – 6/1 6:00PM – 8:20PM | CMU 230 | Partially In-Person
Registration SLN: 21578

Course Description

This collaborative hands-on course explores the kind of short-form writing that dominates today’s rapidly evolving professional communications space — the digital space where lines between content and form increasingly blur and where always-on media feeds deliver a mix of advertising, marketing, public relations, human resources, personal brand-building and journalistic reporting and research. It’s a space that presents new writing challenges every day: professional emails, office memos, newsletters, website copy, funding proposals, executive summaries, op-eds, tweets, blurbs, blogs. Much of this material is badly done. Most of it is mediocre. The best of it, though, sings out and demands our attention, demonstrating mastery in the kind of critical thinking and dedicated practice that delivers copy sharply focused and sure in matching voice and material with form and audience. This course is part professional-communications criticism class and part writing workshop. It’s about learning how to identify good writing; it’s about understanding the process that produces good writing; and it’s about practicing that process yourself.

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COMMLD 531: Foundations of Video Storytelling

(

Christensen

)

- 2022-2023 | Autumn 2022

MCDM Elective | 5 Credits
Tuesdays 10/04-12/06, 6:00PM – 9:50PM | CMU 302
Registration SLN: 13020

Course Description:

The landscape of web-distributed video can be broadly divided into two motifs: Entertainment and Information. From YouTube to Facebook, AR to VR, Twitch to Facebook Live, online video is a storytelling revolution.

Storytelling has been part of the human experience since the formation of language. Today, the technology that surrounds the “tell” of a story (the modes and channels of communication) directly shapes the immersive experience felt by the viewer.

This course focuses on the decisions we make when we tell our stories. This course is both theoretical and practical. Students will be afforded the skills to create and distribute video stories. Additionally, students will be expected to display critical thinking around point of view, audience targeting, ROI success criteria, methodology, and production standards. You are expected to exercise the craft of content creation while at the same time critically evaluating and deconstructing content you see in the marketplace.

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COMMLD 517: The Psychology of User Experience

(

Haverly

)

- 2023-2024 | Spring 2024

MCDM Elective | Meets Research Methods Requirement | 5 Credits
Mondays 3/25 – 5/20, 6:00pm – 9:50pm | Online
Registration SLN: 12556

Course Description

Designers, product marketers, and entrepreneurs will learn the psychological constrictions of attention, perception, memory, disposition, motivation, and social influence that determine whether or not customers will be receptive to their digital innovations. This will give their innovations an edge on what are increasingly competitive platforms such as apps, bots, in-car apps, augmented reality content). Students will learn…

The psychological processes determining users’ perception of, engagement with, and recommendation of digital innovations

Examples of interfaces before and after simple psychological alignments that vastly enhanced their effectiveness

How to identify, apply theory, and develop consulting or research recommendations based on psychological theory

Application to their own business interests. A deeper understanding of common digital interfaces such as conversion funnels, display advertisements, and mobile notifications.

A broader understanding of the human context of digital ventures, and the ethical differences between alignment and meeting needs vs. exploitation and unsustainable design approaches

Meets Research Methods Requirement.

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COMMLD 522: The Future of Marketing

(

Salkowitz

)

- 2024-2025 | Autumn 2024

MCDM Elective | 5 Credits
Tuesdays 10/1 – 12/3, 6:00pm – 9:50pm | CMU 126
Registration SLN: 13054

Course Description

Rapid evolution of digital media and technology continues to disrupt the business of marketing, making it essential for professionals in the field to keep abreast of trends in a number of areas. This class focuses on the technologies shaping marketing, advertising, media, public relations and communications in the 2-4 year horizon and explores strategies of successful marketing organizations, both digital and traditional.

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COMMLD 522: The Future of Marketing

(

Salkowitz

)

- 2025-2026 | Autumn 2025

MCDM Elective | 5 Credits
Tuesdays 9/30 – 12/9, 6:00pm – 9:50pm | Room on Time Schedule
Registration SLN: 13014

Course Description

Rapid evolution of digital media and technology continues to disrupt the business of marketing, making it essential for professionals in the field to keep abreast of trends in a number of areas. This class focuses on the technologies shaping marketing, advertising, media, public relations and communications in the 2-4 year horizon and explores strategies of successful marketing organizations, both digital and traditional.

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COMMLD 512: User Research & UX Strategies

(

Porter

)

- 2025-2026 | Winter 2026

MCDM Elective | Meets Research Methods Requirement | 5 Credits
Thursdays, 1/8 – 3/12, 6:00pm – 9:50pm | Online
Registration SLN: 12643

Course Description:

This course focuses on the design, implementation, and evaluation of user interfaces from a usability perspective. The aim of the class is to study the concepts, methods, and techniques of usability engineering, with a focus on the artifacts where user experience is essential. Historically, usability has covered aspects of efficiency, learnability, and ease of use. Today, a large number of other measures for success rely on elements such as playability, engagement, entertainment, immersion, and aesthetics.

The above concepts will be detailed with the expectation that by the end of the quarter, students will recognize the aspects of each of the following deliverables within Interface Design and User Research. At the completion of this course, students will have portfolio-ready, end-to-end work examples. The work examples are designed for students to demonstrate they can: understand basic principles of user interface design, implementation, and evaluation, design and conduct usability studies, select an appropriate evaluation method and articulate its advantages and disadvantages, establish useful test objectives, and prepare reports and presenting results.

Meets Research Methods Requirement.

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COMMLD 522: The Future of Marketing

(

)

- 2026-2027 | Autumn 2026

MCDM Elective | 5 Credits
Tuesdays 10/06 – 12/8, 6:00pm – 9:50pm | Room on Time Schedule
Registration SLN: 12810

Course Description

Rapid evolution of digital media and technology continues to disrupt the business of marketing, making it essential for professionals in the field to keep abreast of trends in a number of areas. This class focuses on the technologies shaping marketing, advertising, media, public relations and communications in the 2-4 year horizon and explores strategies of successful marketing organizations, both digital and traditional.

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COMMLD 570 C: Professional Visibility and Personal Branding for Communications Professionals

(

Sampaco

)

- 2021-2022 | Autumn 2021

Track Neutral | 1 Credit
Wednesdays 9/29, 10/13, 10/27, 11/10, 12/1, 6:00PM – 7:50PM | CMU 326
Registration SLN: 23780

Course Description:

Career success is not just about what you know or who you know. It’s about who knows you. If you want others in your industry to know who you are and to recognize your value, you must be intentional about how you show up, how you communicate about yourself, and how you make others feel. Taught by a TV news anchor with more than 10 years of on-camera experience, this course is for ambitious professionals who want to set themselves up for success by growing their professional visibility and advocating for themselves at work. Career strategy, personal branding, and public speaking are core elements of this course. You’ll learn how to improve your on-camera speaking skills (ex. Zoom meetings), how to articulate your value to a prospective employer or client, how to talk about your accomplishments, and how to grow your professional credibility using social media. You will practice speaking in front of audiences (in person or virtually) and receive feedback on how to improve your verbal and non-verbal communication skills, culminating in your final assignment, an “About Me” video (geared towards prospective employers or clients) that you can attach to your LinkedIn profile. Guest speakers will also share strategies for growing their professional visibility and how they approach self-advocacy in the workplace. Women, students of color, and international students are strongly encouraged to register for this course.

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COMMLD 521: Digital Media Marketing and Branding

(

Mottola

)

- 2022-2023 | Winter 2023

MCDM Elective | 5 Credits
Wednesdays 1/4 – 3/8, 6:00PM – 9:50PM | Online
Registration SLN: 12778

Course Description:

This course is designed for students that will be utilizing their MCDM education and experience in the marketing arenas in businesses and organizations (including non-profits) or in leadership functions where an understanding of marketing is an important skill. The focus on the course will be on how to best utilize digital media vehicles along with more traditional forms of communications and advertising (and other marketing or Research and Development functions). Because of the ever changing nature of the advertising world with the advances and acceptances of digital media platforms, we will showcase industry “heavy hitters” from local marketing and advertising agencies to discuss the trends and issues the industry faces, using real life situations to explore alternatives and solutions. We will also explore how new media can be used with traditional channels of distribution (clicks and bricks), as well as in the R & D functions by encouraging and mining information from current and potential customers. Students that have not had a basic marketing class will be assigned pre-course supplemental readings and we will do a quick review at our first session so that everyone has a common understanding of the subject before we move into the more cutting edge concepts.

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© Copyright 2025 Department of Communication. University of Washington

© Copyright 2025 Department of Communication. University of Washington