I’m going to say this from the start, I do understand the stigma of communication majors seemingly being a joke. If you have absolutely no prior knowledge of the track then you could never know just how grueling it can be. If you went back a decade or so, most communication majors would simply be learning how to talk—how to communicate. People need to be able to communicate and corporations need people to communicate for them. Imagine the chaos that would ensue from the CEO of a company writing his own press releases and then writing an article about his company’s downfall for the local paper. Everything would be biased and the general public would never truly know what was going on in the world around them. Even though the education of a communication’s major may not have been comparable to that of a Pre-Med student that does not mean they are unintelligent. Today, communication majors are learning the same things as they were then, but now we are working our butts off.

Two chapters per class, a paper, three to four quizzes and too many notes to keep track of. That’s just a basic week for me. My classes are no easier than someone who is learning finance or biology. The curriculum of someone in my track is to learn how to write with AP Grammar as well as learn and memorize 30 plus logical fallacies, comprehend and remember tens of communication theories and then to write papers and give speeches covering all of it. That’s just building up to the midterms and finals. It’s uncommon for us to a go a semester without a large research paper or term paper and often times they take the 6+ weeks we’re given for them. At least, if we want a good grade they do.

Don’t for one second think life gets easier for communication students when we walk out of class. We need a portfolio and experience in order to get employed, especially for aspiring journalists or broadcasters. Around the hours we dedicate to homework, we often find ourselves making time for school papers, online writing outlets (what’s up Odyssey), personal blogs, photography clubs, the radio station…you get the point. We have limited free time and the little bit we have is often usurped by homework or sleep. So if you lined us up next to your soon-to-be-well-paid science majors you would see that we work just as hard as they do so we can we be as well-paid as they are…which we will be.

If you are someone who didn’t go to college or you went for something that isn’t related to communication, writing or English, then you probably feel the same way as the people who grimace when I reveal my education track. I respect your opinion. I respect your education and career. But I do not respect how you assume I am wasting my money, time and future on a “jobless career”. (Yes someone has actually said that to me.) Even if that were true, which it is not, it wouldn’t matter to me. I love what I am learning and I love who I am learning it with and I love the opportunities it does and will provide me. It is because of students, like myself, who chose this writing intensive track that you have the media you enjoy so much.

We work behind the scenes. We make sure your favorite celebrity stays your favorite celebrity. We travel, as journalists, around the world and back so you can learn about the world from the comfort of your sofa. We are your morning commute talk show. We are even the annoying commercials you despise, but then love for the Super Bowl. Without our dedication to a “jobless career” you wouldn’t have a release from your career nor would you know about all the products you rush out on Black Friday to buy. Why? Because communication majors are the students who will work in advertising, journalism, broadcasting, public relations and many other fields. Most importantly to all of the critics out there, they will work in fields where all of their hard work will be acknowledged, appreciated and more often than not, rewarded with a healthy salary. Without those fields and the dedicated students I work with every day the world would be much different than it is today.

So please, make your jokes and tell me some more that I will “never make a penny”. (Again, yes, someone has said that to me). I will probably laugh along with you and roll my eyes because I know something about my future that you don’t. And that’s okay. But the next time you turn on your television or even look down at your smartphone to view your news updates, remember that somebody, like me, sat in a classroom relearning grammar, memorizing theories and fallacies, writing paper after paper desperately hoping to grasp the concepts of AP Grammar. And for what? So you could tell them that they weren’t going in the right direction? No. For the reward of following their dreams, doing what makes them happy, and impacting the world everyday…impacting YOUR world.