Once when I was catching up with old friends from high school, I was asked the most common college question: what's your major? I answered, proudly, that I am majoring in journalism. My friend responded sarcastically, "oh, communications. Those good 'ole MRS degrees." This thought had resonated in my head over and over. I kept asking myself if people actually considered this a degree in which women solely acquire it to attract potential suitors. Was it an easy degree? Did it have a bad reputation? I would not know until I started my pre-journalism curriculum.
Man, little did he know that I am not only becoming more enlightened each class, but this major is kicking my ass. The amount of writing I am assigned comes in infinite numbers. I watch classmates struggle constantly because that does not come naturally to them-- and that's the thing. With a workload so heavily concentrated in writing, it is not easy to float assignment to assignment. But obviously that does indeed still make the major sound like somewhat of a blowoff.
Communication. As humans, our very essence of coexisting relies on this. It is not just talking to one another or use of physical gestures. Journalism, advertising, public relations and the rest of the vast variety of majors that fall under the spectrum of communications vigorously tear apart every aspect of communication and study it until it can't be deciphered anymore. The way we work in groups, as individuals, as couples or more are so complex that unless you have taken repeated courses, you will not fully understand all these aspects-- I don't even get it yet. With the knowledge of these interactions, communications majors take it to the field and analyze each person to the core so that they can fairly report on them, their issues and controversies, and their lives. Whether it be a journalist investigating the Catholic church, or a public relations agency calculating the best way to put a candidate our onto a public platform or an advertising agency analyzing demographics and psychological patterns to entice the perfect consumer, each path within communications takes you on a journey of not only learning multiple other disciplines (such as political science, statistics, sciences, business or history), but using them to recognize a person to the core.
Each communication major is so grounded in the roots of their society so that they can properly do their jobs. We learn what you are learning, not to partake in it, but so that we can take your studies and strengthen our own practices in an educated and ethical manner. Women in communications are not taking the easy way out. It should not be a major that puts a woman in her feminine place. It weeds out hard working women and spews the strongest into the workforce where we have to work even more vigorously to move up into a well-recognized position. It hardens our shell so that we can go out and become the working women we studied to be-- not just housewives.
