After entering college as a business major, it took me about a semester to realize that I hated it. To each there own, but business was not the right choice for me. I ended up switching my major to communication studies, and haven’t looked back since. But after changing my major, I cannot even begin to explain how often I get two specific questions. The first question is, “What do you learn with a communication studies major?” The second is “What are you going to do with that major after you graduate?” These don’t seem like the hardest questions, and like they would have a very straightforward answer. But it wasn’t until a few weeks ago that I finally figured out how to answer these questions in a way that summed up my experience.
What brought on my thinking about these questions was a survey that I took in my capstone class a few weeks ago. The point of this survey is to ask graduating seniors what they thought of their major, and what they think needs improvement. Questions range from asking about advising, course content, reading load, and essentially our overall evaluation of the major. A lot of students had things to say about the amount of reading that professors assigned and repetitive content in classes, but one question stuck out to me. it asked about what we think we should be taking away from our classes. After imputing our answers, the results were clear that students wanted marketable skills and preparation for a career after college. What was interesting though is that we were shown the results for this question, but from the perspective of our communication studies professors. The results were entirely different, as you can image. Rather than preparation for a career being the top priority of professors, it was instead preparation for citizenship. I didn’t think much of this until my professor brought it up in our next class, and she completely changed my perspective.
I had been one of the students that said that preparation for a career was most important, and didn’t think my mindset could be changed in the period of five minute. My professor explained that although she thought that career preparation was in the top three, she still believed preparation for citizenship was more important. Rather than just throwing skills at communication studies students and hoping we can use them, she said it was much more about preparing us for a variety of situations. Through critical thinking skills, the ability to understand and persuade, and to evaluate situations from a multitude of perspectives, my professor hopes that we will not only find jobs, but help make our mark on society. This entire conversation changed my perspective on my major because along the way I had forgotten what education was about. I think we are often so focused on getting jobs after college that we forget that isn’t the only intention of the classes we take. What about learning for the sake of becoming better individuals? Or learning to gain a deeper understanding of something we are passionate about? Or learning for the pure sake of learning? There is so much more to take away from these college classes than just preparing for a career, and I am glad that my professor allowed me remember this.
I am graduating in a few short months, and I am grateful that my perspective changed on what it means to be a communication studies major. I think that sometimes people do not think we have valuable skills to offer, but I beg to differ. I think there is a lot that we can bring to the table, and you’ll be surprised how valuable our major can be.
