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Immersive Courses

A Week of Immersion, A Lifetime of Inspiration

At several points in the year, Medill's Integrated Marketing Communications Professional program offers elective immersive courses. Each one provides the chance to take a course in person for one week and earn a full credit toward your degree. Courses are held in a variety of cities and give you the opportunity to build in-person connections with your faculty and classmates. This can enrich courses taken remotely and on campus with an entirely unique experience. Each immersive course brings you closer to realizing your professional aspirations.

Choose courses that align with your interests and ambitions. Gain powerful global perspectives and enrich your professional network. Focus intensely on one area of development while completing a full credit of your graduate program in a single week.

Meet your classmates in person.

Meet your classmates in person

Learn directly from industry leaders.

Learn directly from industry leaders

Focus deeply on a chosen area.

Focus deeply on a chosen area

The Advantage of Medill’s IMC Immersive Marketing Courses

Commit a week to your studies, distraction-free.

Medill’s IMC immersive courses provide a unique combination of advantages: experiential learning that provides you with real-world experience and an understanding of current challenges in marketing; creative problem-solving strategies that will serve you throughout your career; direct access to industry leaders; networking opportunities with other students and alumni; and the flexibility to finish your studies and achieve your career goals. A week spent deeply entrenched with Medill faculty and your own talented classmates can give you a lifetime of inspiration.

Course Details

Each week-long elective course fulfills one credit of the program’s 13 units
Course topics are designed to take unique advantage of the city in which each course is offered. Domestic courses are offered at Medill locations in Chicago and New York; global immersive courses are held in London and Asia
All courses are taught entirely in person
You’ll be eligible to take immersive courses after you complete the program’s first three core courses
Immersive courses are optional and not required for completion of the program

Medill’s priority is always the health and safety of our students. We may make adjustments to planned course locations based on guidance from Northwestern’s Office of Global Safety and Security.

Recent Medill IMC Professional Immersive Marketing Courses

Customer Experience Design in Brand Marketing

Taught in December
Chile

2025 instructors:
Kathy LaTour
Professor

Julie Kim
Director of Outreach and Internationalization and PLEIN UDP (E+I), within the Faculty of Administration and Economics at UDP

Panorama from above of Pennsylvania Avenue and United States Capitol Building towards USA Congress on National Mall in Washington, D.C.

Stakeholder Communications and Society

Taught in 2025
Washington, D.C.

2025 instructors:
Bradley Akubuiro
Adjunct Lecturer and Partner at Bully Pulpit Interactive

Danielle Bell
Associate Professor

Chicago skyline view from above, Lake Michigan and city of Chicago downtown skyscrapers

Digital Leadership

Taught in August
Chicago

2025 instructors:
Randy Hlavac
Medill Lecturer
Director of the Medill IMC / IBM OmniChannel Initiative
CEO of Marketing Synergy, Inc.

Erik Qualman
Founder of Socialnomics
Bestselling Author and Motivational Speaker

Global Perspectives: London

Taught in June
London

2025 instructors:
Jacqueline Babb
Associate Professor and Full-Time IMC Academic Director

Chris Cahill
Director of the IMC Professional Program and Associate Professor and

MarTech Essentials: Navigating the Intersection of Marketing, Data and AI

Taught in 2025
Paris

2025 instructors:
David Shell
Adjunct Lecturer

Vijay Viswanathan
Associate Dean of IMC and Associate Professor

Aerial View of San Francisco Skyline at Sunrise

Sustainability and the Circular Economy

Taught in March
San Francisco

2025 instructor:
Preeti Shroff-Mehta
Professor of Integrated Marketing Communications
Founder of NAO International: Circular/Sustainable Technology, Health, Education Research & Innovations

Lindsay B. (IMC22)

“You're learning a lot, you're moving quickly through the material because of the truncated time, but you're also building extraordinary and robust connections with the professors and your classmates. The two courses I've done had extraordinary guest speakers who really bring the learnings to life. You're meeting those guests, who are practitioners, and getting to network. The sessions are also often combined with social learning events: mixers or panel discussions that take place after hours, so you're getting a condensed, valuable experience. And in the practicality of moving through the program, you're also building a whole credit in the course of a week”

Christopher I. (IMC22)

“It’s an experience I’ll never forget. The first day was to practice interviewing random people in public and try to understand them at a deep level in a very short time. It was amazing how much you could learn by being open and asking the right questions. The next day, it was meeting with the client and interviewing a few people in our target. Then we took those insights and worked toward finding insights instead of finite solutions. That was probably the most difficult thing to do—we’re so hardwired to find a solution that we pass up the possibilities that may not yet exist. By the end of the week, we had jotted down thousands of insights on boards, on walls, and filtered them through new constraints and possibilities until we made a breakthrough discovery. It was a master class in a systematic approach to harnessing the power of imagination.”

Keep Asking Questions

Are immersive courses required for degree completion?

No. Immersive courses are not required for completion of the IMC Professional master’s program. Each one is an option that students may choose to pursue.

Do immersive courses carry the same credit value as the other courses in the program?

Yes. Each one counts as an elective and can help shorten the amount of time it takes to complete the program.

What costs are associated with the IMC immersive courses?

Tuition for these courses is the same as any other courses in the program; there are no additional fees. Students are responsible for their own travel costs (flights, accommodations) if needed.

How are immersive courses different from the other elective course offerings?

They are offered in person, during breaks between regular academic quarters
Each one is about a week long and provides a more concentrated, intensive experience than the standard courses, each of which requires a full academic quarter for completion
They provide further opportunities for in-person course experiences; students can meet with peers, faculty members, and students in other cohorts, and gain the benefits of hands-on learning

Are you a working professional looking to take your career to the next level?

Earn your master’s live online with the option for on-site experiences through Northwestern University. Our MS in Integrated Marketing Communications Professional program, offered through the Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications, helps you build your expertise in consumer understanding through a rigorous and immersive curriculum.

Complete the form to download a program brochure for more information on the IMC Professional program.

Get Program Details

This program is for marketers with three or more years of professional experience.

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