General Information
Prospective Students
Current Students
- MTPC Requirements
- MTPC Coursework
- Capstone and Portfolio Projects
- The Written Comprehensive Exam
- MTPC Faculty
- MTPC Students
- Graduate Student Handbook
- Graduate Student Planner
- Department Forms
Alumni
Graduate Student Life
Useful Resources
- Society for Technical Communication
- STC Birmingham Chapter
- STC Atlanta Chapter
- STC Huntsville Chapter
- STC Middle Tennessee Chapter
Coursework
The MTPC degree requires the completion of 30 credit hours of graduate-level coursework. These 30 credit hours include four required courses (12 hours) and six elective courses (18 hours) selected with the approval of the student’s advisory committee.
The four required courses are
English 6000 Technical and Professional Editing
English 6010 Document Design in Technical and Professional Communication
English 6030 Topics in Technical and Professional Communication
English 7010 Technical and Professional Communication: Issues and Approaches
The six elective courses offer students the opportunity to design their own program. These courses may include other technical and professional course offerings; most students do decide to take additional courses in the TPC area. They may also include any other graduate courses in English. Courses in rhetoric or linguistics, in particular, are useful complements to TPC coursework. Bear in mind that graduate teaching assistants must take English 7040 English Composition: Approaches and Issues; this course counts as one of the six elective courses.
The coordinated minor option: Of the six elective courses, students may take up to three courses (9 hours) in departments other than English. These courses outside the English department are considered a coordinated minor. Although a coordinated minor is not a requirement of the MTPC program, many students do to expand their studies into departments and areas beyond English. Some appropriate areas include the following:
Communication
Public Administration
Educational Foundations, Leadership, and Technology Management
Management Information Systems
Psychology
Or any of a number of other possibilities, depending on the student’s qualifications and professional goals
Alicia Carroll, Associate Professor
Department of English
9044 Haley Center
Auburn University
Auburn, AL 36849
(334) 844-9044
Email
For information about Society for Technical Communication scholarships, visit the Society’s website: www.stc.org.
In addition, some MTPC students work part-time or during the summer as researchers, writers, editors, or webmasters for faculty and academic and administrative units across campus.