I chose communications because a small school means less options for majors, and communications was the closest I could get to my hopeful career path. The majority of the comm field signed their life away for this same reason. That, or because comm is known on most campuses as an easy major you pick because you don’t exactly know what your post-grad career is going to be.
I started college as a communications major specifically because of my lack of choices but didn’t realize how quickly this would change my career path and even my outlook on life. We dissect how people communicate, why people chose the words they do, and how it differs from culture to culture. We know so much more than pathos, ethos, and logos.
Communications studies is exactly what it sounds like - studying how people communicate to each other and in groups. Most people take 1 or 2 comm classes as a general education class their freshman year but once you start taking upper level classes you realize why you became a communications major.
“Talking is our livelihood.”
My gender communications teacher summed it up perfectly. We loved talking so much we decided to study it! We are the students who fully comprehend how communication is the basis of everything we do, and the basis of success. We are going to graduate and run our nation's media, which in turn means deciding what you hear about in the news. We will be in charge of speaking out, informing, and educating our nation’s public. Communications isn’t just talking though, it’s the social media aspect of communication, the nonverbal portions of communication and the unintentional behaviors as well.
Communication is relevant in any major - you always need communication. Whether it’s with teachers, with other students, or any other faculty that you want information from, its crucial to completing your courses with the grade you desire. You have to know what’s appropriate and inappropriate to say to your teacher, which is pretty standard, but we will know how to manipulate our behaviors and speech to sound less ignorant and more willing to learn/get extra help from teachers - which they remember! Being a communications major also gives us so many insights to post-graduate life.
We are going to be the graduates who are going to have the upperhand during interviews because we know what words are positive and negative trigger words related to the work place and how to substitute them out. We know how to read the interviewer and recognize their personality type through their word choice, and which personality type best compliments that in a professional environment. We will know the wrong and right way to negotiate with our landlords based on their type of conflict style, and how to work with it in our favor.
A communication major may seem like too general of a topic, or like it won’t lead to a serious job, but we believe in what we study. And we also get to save a little money by renting all of our books!
