BS Advertising and PR: Course and Careers

TL;DR: There is no CHED memorandum order for an advertising or public relations degree. CHED's 2017 batch standardised communication, broadcasting, journalism, multimedia arts, fine arts and design, and business administration - but not advertising or PR as programmes in their own right. What exists instead are four routes into the same industry, run under four different orders, with degree names that change from school to school. Neither advertising nor public relations has a PRC board exam.

This is the rare course guide where the most useful thing we can tell you is that the thing you searched for does not exist as a single, standardised degree. If you go looking for "BS Advertising and Public Relations" expecting one curriculum the way BS Nursing or BS Accountancy has one, you will not find it. What you will find is several genuinely different degrees that all lead into agencies, brand teams and communications departments. Knowing which is which before you enrol is the whole point of this guide.

What CHED Actually Regulates

CHED issued a large batch of programme standards in 2017 under Commission en banc Resolution No. 231-2017. That batch created orders for the Bachelor of Arts in Communication, Bachelor of Arts in Broadcasting, Bachelor in Journalism and Bachelor of Arts in Journalism, Bachelor of Science in Development Communication, the Bachelor of Multimedia Arts, undergraduate programmes in Fine Arts and Design, and the Bachelor of Science in Business Administration, among many others.

None of them is an advertising or public relations degree. Advertising and PR appear inside those orders as courses, majors and allied fields - never as a standalone programme with its own standards.

That is not an oversight so much as a reflection of how the industry hires. Agencies recruit copywriters out of communication and literature programmes, art directors out of fine arts and multimedia, planners out of business and psychology, and account people out of nearly anywhere. The education system mirrors that.

The Four Routes

Route one: the communication degree

This is the most common route and the one CHED has written most explicitly.

CMO No. 35, series of 2017, the revised standards for BA Communication, sets a 125-unit sample curriculum across 38 subjects. Within it, a school must select three required courses from a menu of seven: Journalism Principles and Practices, Broadcasting Principles and Practices, Social Media Principles and Practices, Advertising Principles and Practices, Public Relations Principles and Practices, Integrated Marketing Communication, and Introduction to Film.

Three of the seven are advertising and PR courses. Whether your school actually picks them is a school-level decision, which is exactly why you should ask before enrolling rather than assume.

CMO No. 35 also names "public relations and advertising practitioners" among the careers its graduates enter, and the programme includes a thesis or special project plus an internship. Our AB Communication guide covers that degree in full.

The neighbouring broadcasting order, CMO No. 37, s. 2017, does something similar from the other direction: it offers "Advertising Principles and Practices in Broadcasting, Interactive and Emerging Media" as a suggested elective, and it lists Public Relations, Advertising and Integrated Marketing Communication among the programmes allied to broadcasting. See our AB Broadcasting guide for that route.

Route two: the business degree

The marketing side of advertising sits inside business administration. If your interest is brand management, media buying, consumer research or the commercial side of campaigns rather than the making of them, this is the more direct preparation. Our BSBA marketing management guide covers what that major involves.

De La Salle University publishes a distinct degree here - a Bachelor of Science in Advertising Management - described on its own programme page as "designed for students who intend to pursue a professional career in the advertising-related industry here in the Philippines or in the Asia-Pacific region." DLSU says the curriculum develops "managerial, strategic planning, creative and media abilities," and names the work areas it prepares graduates for: account management, creative, production, media, and marketing services.

That list is worth memorising because it is essentially the org chart of an advertising agency. Knowing which of those five departments you want to end up in is more useful than knowing which degree title you want.

Route three: fine arts and design

If the appeal is the visual craft - art direction, layout, illustration, campaign design - the route runs through fine arts. The University of Santo Tomas lists a Bachelor of Fine Arts major in Advertising Arts among its programmes.

This is a genuinely different education from the communication or business routes. You will build a portfolio of work rather than a transcript of campaigns analysed, and admission commonly involves a talent or portfolio test. If you are coming from senior high, the Arts and Design track is the natural on-ramp - see our arts and design strand guide.

Route four: multimedia

Mapua University publishes a Bachelor of Arts in Advertising Design under its School of Media Studies. Programmes in this space sit closer to digital production - motion, interactive, and screen-first work - than to traditional print and broadcast craft.

So What Should You Search For?

Not "BS Advertising and Public Relations." Search for the actual degree names schools use, because they vary:

• BS Advertising Management
• BA Advertising Design
• BFA major in Advertising Arts
• BA Communication (and check whether the school runs the advertising and PR required courses)
• BSBA major in Marketing Management

And when you enquire, ask the registrar or department three specific questions:

1. Which CHED memorandum order does this curriculum follow? This tells you what the programme actually is underneath the marketing name.
2. What degree name appears on the diploma? Not the brochure name.
3. Is there a required internship, and with which agencies? In a field with no licence, placements are the credential.

Is There a Board Exam for Advertising or PR?

No. The Professional Regulation Commission operates forty-six Professional Regulatory Boards, covering professions from Accountancy to Veterinary Medicine. Neither advertising nor public relations is among them. There is no PRC examination, no professional identification card, and no legal requirement to hold any particular degree to work as a copywriter, art director, media planner, account manager or PR practitioner in the Philippines.

The practical consequence is the same as in journalism and broadcasting: your portfolio is your licence. Campaign work, spec work, published or produced material, internship credits and any freelance clients you have handled are what agencies evaluate. Students who treat every class brief as portfolio material from first year graduate in a materially stronger position than those who wait.

If licensure is a factor in your course choice, our courses with board exams guide sets out which degrees actually lead to one.

Careers

The roles cluster into five recognisable areas, which map onto how agencies are structured:

• Account management. Client relationships, briefs, budgets, timelines. Business and communication graduates dominate.
• Creative. Copywriters and art directors. Fine arts, multimedia, communication and literature backgrounds all appear.
• Strategy and planning. Consumer research, brand strategy, media planning. Business, communication, psychology and statistics backgrounds.
• Production. Shoots, post-production, digital assets. Multimedia and broadcasting backgrounds.
• Public relations and corporate communications. Media relations, crisis communication, internal communications, sustainability and CSR reporting. Communication and journalism graduates are common here.

Client-side work - marketing and communications teams inside companies rather than agencies - is a parallel track, and many practitioners move between the two.

We are not printing salary ranges in this guide. Agency pay in the Philippines varies too much between network agencies, independents, in-house teams and freelance work for a single figure to be honest, and there is no authoritative Philippine dataset broken down by agency role that we can cite. If you see a confident peso figure for "advertising salary in the Philippines" elsewhere, check where it came from.

How to Choose Between the Routes

A short diagnostic:

• You want to make the work. → Fine arts, multimedia or advertising design.
• You want to build the strategy and manage the client. → Advertising management or business administration.
• You want the broadest option and to decide later. → Communication, at a school that actually runs the advertising and PR required courses.
• You want to write. → Communication or literature, plus relentless portfolio building.

Then compare specific schools on the things that differ: whether the programme is management-oriented or craft-oriented, whether there are working studios and software, whether internships are required and where students actually went, and what the faculty's own industry background is. For the general question of whether a school is authorised to run its programmes, see CHED-accredited schools.

Comparing schools? Browse schools on SchoolFinderPH to see programmes and locations side by side.

Sources

• Commission on Higher Education - 2017 CHED Memorandum Orders index (full list of 2017 programme standards)
• CHED Memorandum Order No. 35, s. 2017 - Revised PSGs for the Bachelor of Arts in Communication (official PDF)
• CHED Memorandum Order No. 37, s. 2017 - PSGs for Bachelor of Arts in Broadcasting (official PDF)
• Professional Regulation Commission - Professional Regulatory Boards
• De La Salle University - Bachelor of Science in Advertising Management
• Mapua University - Bachelor of Arts in Advertising Design, School of Media Studies
• University of Santo Tomas - Bachelor of Fine Arts, major in Advertising Arts