Creativity - You either have it or you don't.
A creative mind is a born trait like any other. For some, new and exciting ideas come naturally. The way we see the world is intensely unique and breeds possibility, innovation. It's all in the way we are wired. In any field under the umbrella of communications, thinking imaginatively is a coveted skill and success is deeply dependent on our capacity for adaptation: to new trends, new developments, and new environments. Our job is to break the status quo, to stand out in ways never done before. The hardest thing in the world is to be different and we come as close as we can to achieving it.
Real World Experience
A lot of projects we take on are based on real world work. Writing stories from a reporters perspective or creating strategic marketing plans for a company are just a few examples (see section on resumes) of the things we get to explore and create in our classes. We are lucky to get this type of experience while we are still in school, but this work doesn't come easy. We are treated like professionals early on in college and are expected to produce quality work from the get-go. This is both extremely beneficial (so prepared for the workforce!) and horribly intimidating.
Real World Rejection
One of the hardest parts about our major and the fields that correspond is the subjectivity by which we are assessed. People will like what they like and really, the only thing you can do is try your best to make them feel something for what you come up with. Success in this kind of business is measured by how the work you put out is received by human beings, and the reality of it is, emotion will always be a factor. As a comm major, you will face rejection long before you enter the workforce. You will come to know it and love it… eventually. This is what makes us better. This is where innovation and progress come from. It sucks in the moment. Rejection always will, but even though it makes communications that much harder, it preps us in ways that are unique to our major, to our college experience, and in a few years, adulting won’t seem so bad.
Endless Possibilities - A blessing and a curse
We are used to being asked "So what exactly can you do with that degree?" And quite frankly, we could probably do almost anything. Every company, whether corporate or nonprofit, has some type of communications or public relations department. Not everyone can get their message out to consumers, and that's why they hire us. Upon graduation, we have millions of options. We aren't limited to one job or one field for the rest of our life. Communication is always changing and that's the exciting part. We will never be bored with our job no matter what it is. Now, on the other hand, this can make the job market feel overwhelming. It's hard to pin down exactly where we want to be. Especially in advertising or journalism, where the competition is fierce. In a broad field, the challenge is finding where you fit, what you're good at, and how you can use that to find the best job for you.
Knowledge, not Memorization
To learn communication is to learn how to learn. We are career learners. Almost everything we do throughout our academic careers is based on broad concepts, strategies of thinking, and ways of looking at the world from a variety of perspectives. Sure, we have no formulas to memorize, historical dates are relatively insignificant, and the periodic table is a foreign concept to us, but we have tools of our own that simply don’t require this type of hard work. Our minds are not storage units, but factories, reshaping ideas and concepts using our own experience and knowledge as a mold or reference. We are smart. It’s just a different type of intelligence.
We write more than you study.
While many students are up until 3 AM studying calculus in the library for a test, we are working over the course of an entire semester on a scholarly paper or advertising campaign. We are always writing, we are always editing. The work never ends because we can always be better writers. The reality is we are working on creating something new, something different, while others are just studying a textbook.
We know a lot about everything but we're not experts in anything.
We can't achieve expertise. We just can't. Because the world around us is constantly changing (our goals, stories, clients, etc.) it wouldn't make sense for us to. We know exactly how much we need to know in order to effectively communicate a message and that is honestly the best we can do. Sure, sometimes we might feel the slightest bit of inadequacy or ignorance, but the reality is that throughout our careers both as students and professionals, we will take something away from every little campaign or project or piece we work on. We still have a wealth of knowledge, just in a different currency than "experts".
Our resumes don't fit on one page.
Thankfully, almost everything we do can go on our resume or in our portfolio. Every essay, advertising campaign, and press release we write proves that we are multidimensional. Our resumes are more than one page because we can't leave anything off. Finding a job quickly with a communications degree comes with showing off all the experience you've had. Experience, in some ways, is better than good grades or a 4.0 GPA. We work our butts off to please clients and produce strategies that we are 100% confident with. We spend weeks writing journalism stories and essays. I'd rather have a longer resume that shows everything I'm proud of, than shorten it just for the sake of an employer's time. If an employee likes you from the beginning, they will keep reading. After all, much of the industry revolves around keeping people engaged in our idea, our brand. In this case, we are the brand and our client is the potential employer.
