Professional & Technical Communication

About this program

Professional & Technical Communication is a fully online bachelor's degree from UW–Porter Falls. An online completion degree for people who write, document, and explain technical work — and want to do it as their job.

It is asynchronous, runs in seven-week terms with six start dates a year, and is taught by the same faculty as Porter's on-campus programs. The transcript and diploma do not distinguish online from on-campus study.

Who it is for

Technical staff, trainers, support agents, and marketing coordinators with roughly 60 transferable credits who already write documentation, procedures, or training on the side and want to move into a communication role.

Transfer credit

This is a degree-completion program: you transfer in the first roughly 60–72 credits and complete the upper division online. You graduate with a portfolio of real deliverables, several produced for an actual client through the practicum.

Send prior transcripts before you apply and an advisor returns a course-by-course evaluation showing exactly what applies and how many credits remain — usually 33 to 48. Credit from Wesconsin technical colleges is accepted here even where other four-year programs reject it.

Courses you will take

The upper-division sequence is 36 credits of online coursework. A completed sample is below; the official catalog is authoritative.

Beyond the core, the degree includes a small number of general-education credits (usually satisfied by the transfer degree) and free electives.

Format and pace

Take one course (part-time) or two (full-time) per seven-week term. Part-time, a completion degree finishes in about 2 to 3 years; full-time roughly halves that. You can move between full- and part-time term by term, and pause for a term without reapplying.

Coursework is readings, recorded lectures, discussion, projects, and problem sets with weekly deadlines. Assessment is mostly applied work; where a course needs a proctored exam it uses at-home online proctoring, stated in the syllabus before you register.

Cost

Billed at Porter's flat online per-credit rate with no nonresident surcharge — the same price from any state. Fully online students do not pay the campus activity, recreation, or transit fees; a small per-term online course fee covers the platform and library delivery.

Degree-seeking students file the FAFSA and are eligible for federal aid. For employer tuition assistance, student accounts invoices the employer directly and offers deferred payment that waits for reimbursement. See tuition & costs and financial aid.

Where graduates go

Graduates move into roles such as:

• Technical Writer
• Documentation Specialist
• Instructional Designer
• Content Strategist
• Proposal Writer

Median reported starting or post-completion salary for this program: $70,600. Program-level outcome data is published on the career services site.

How to apply

Apply online with no fee and no essay. Submit transcripts from every college attended; a 2.0 cumulative GPA and a completed transfer degree (or ~60 transferable credits) are the baseline. Decisions come in about two weeks, and you can start in the next available term.

An online-admissions advisor is assigned to you before you apply and stays your advisor through graduation.

Accreditation

UW–Porter Falls is institutionally accredited, reaffirmed through 2036, and authorized to offer distance education to students in every U.S. state. Online programs carry the same institutional and, where applicable, specialized accreditation as their on-campus counterparts.