May 2, 2016
Audrey Jensen
[email protected]
The look I get when I tell people I’m a communication major is equivalent to the empathetic doe-eyed stare I would receive if I told them I got kicked out of school.
I understand there are communication students that come to class in their pajamas or are that one student in the group project that shows up on the day of the presentation and wings it.
But you can’t generalize every student in the communication department based on a few bad examples.
Communication is not a degree that students take just because there isn’t anything better or because it’s the easiest way to get their bachelor’s.
A communication degree can provide a great variety of job opportunities, valuable life skills that employers look for and benefit relationships in your life.
No one should be judged for getting paid to write a script or to edit videos if that’s where they want to work.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the median annual wage for media and communication jobs as of May 2015 is $53,530.
There is also an expected four percent growth from 2014 to 2024 in the number of communication jobs available, which would create 27,400 new jobs.
Communication wasn’t a subject I thought I would be able to study over a course of four years. I didn’t even know people could study communication over a course of eight years.
After learning about the theories and sub-fields of communication I’ve realized why it’s important and why every student should take at least one communication class in college.
It should be common sense, right?
You’d think young adults would know how to effectively communicate with each other on a day-to-day basis.
But people don’t always stop and think about how nothing in this life would function properly without good communication.
At work, whether you bag groceries for a customer or work at a call center, you have to communicate with your customers and your co-workers to be good at your job.
At school, if you don’t reach out to your professor when you need help in class, it’s no one’s fault but yours for not making the effort to tell your professor what they can do to help you.
I’ve never liked pointless, high school drama, but again, there wouldn’t be so much of it if people communicated properly.
The most common advice I receive about being successful in anything, is having good communication. With my degree and my experience in the writing field, employers are going to value the fact that I know how to resolve conflicts and work well with others.
Lee lacocca, named the 18th greatest American CEO by Portfolio, said “you can have brilliant ideas, but if you can’t get them across, your ideas won’t get you anywhere.”