Growing up, I always wanted to be a veterinarian. Like, REALLY wanted to be one. From a very young age until probably mid high school, I was unwavering in this idea. Vet school is said by some to be harder to gain admitteance to than med school is, but I always did well in school and I had no doubt I could do it. However, as a teenager, it hit me that although I would be capable of it, I didn’t really want to spend 8+ years in nonstop, full-time school, and not really get to start living my life until I was, at minimum, 26.
Although it was the right decision for me, I was then left without a desired major after having one thing in mind for most of my life. I tried a few things out, doing things like attending a “Women in Engineering” camp for a week at a nearby university but not really loving it, and somehow eventually landed on nursing. I applied to most colleges as a nursing major, until one day I got an acceptance packet from one of my top-choice schools. The packet included a four-year curriculum outline, and when I looked at the first fall semester it involved taking 18 credits. Right then and there, I decided this major was not for me. I wanted to enjoy my “college experience” and overwhelming myself from day one did not seem like the way to do it. I was already on the fence about nursing programs because I really wanted to study abroad and I would have had to do it during the summer because there was no room for that many electives in one semester in a nursing program, but this 18-credit business put me over the edge.
I then decided on “mass communications,” (my university called it Strategic Communications, but many schools call it Mass Communications) with a public relations track. I honestly didn’t even know what that meant at the time. I knew my cousin’s girlfriend worked at a financial firm in NYC and she took clients out to dinner a lot and seemed to make good money and have a great, fun, fancy and glamorous life — and although I was not sure she even did public relations, PR seemed like a good way to get into a similar role. (Okay, sidebar for a minute. First of all, this is probably funny to anyone reading this who actually knows me because the thought of me living a “fancy and glamorous” NYC life is pretty much impossible to imagine. Given the choice I would be at my happiest sitting in the same pair of sweats for days on end, eating nothing but takeout and only getting up to ocasionally let my dogs out or re-fill my wine glass with my $8.99 bottle of Barefoot Wine — $11.99 if I decided to spring for the big bottle. Secondly, I want to reiterate that someone I knew had a job I thought was cool, I wasn’t even sure if it involved PR but I decided PR sounded similar enough and I would just go with that. This is the thought process of an 18 year old. Kudos to my parents for even letting me make this decision and allowing me to find my own way in the world because this line of thinking makes NO sense. It is a miracle any of us make it into adulthood.)
Toward the end of senior year, I had to go to a meeting with our local newspaper with 9 other seniors. We were some of the top students from the five local high schools, and they wanted to take our pictures and find out our college plans. Everyone had to go around and say the university they were attending and their intended major, and as everyone before me said, “neuroscience,” “computer science,” “[insertothertypeofscience],” for the first time I was embarassed to admit I was majoring in public relations. I felt like I wasn’t living up to my potential, I was wasting my intelligence, and I felt like I only was choosing this field because I was being lazy (okay, at the time that last one was a tiny bit true).
The feeling eventually faded, but it would resurface throughout the years as a college student, and even as a graduate having to tell people what my bachelor’s degree was in. People really look down on “liberal arts” degrees like mass communications, saying students go into all this debt for school and graduate with no skills, it is a waste of time, etc. And honestly, I have had enough of this mentality.
I discovered other passions during my time in college and although I kept the major, I didn’t end up staying in the communications/PR field after graduation. I eventually went on to get a master’s degree in another field and I truly love my career now. But, I think the fact that I am not in the field makes me even more qualified to defend the “mass comm” degree. Sure, I have joked that if I had stuck to being a veterinarian, or even a nurse, or gone into one of the science fields my fellow seniors talked about with our newspaper, I would be making way more money now and would admittedly also have more job security. But right now I have a career I enjoy, and I am good at, and I know I wouldn’t be where I am without my background in communications. With that in mind, here are five reasons a “mass comm” degree IS worth a student’s time:
1. There is so much room in your schedule for electives, which means trying out new interests or pursuing new passions.
As I said, one of the things that made me hesitant about the nursing major was the lack of room to study abroad for a semester. As a communications major, I not only got to study abroad (where I took all science classes just because I felt like it, even though that many science courses were not required in my major), I got to intern abroad for a summer at a magazine, I got to minor in public health, I got to graduate early, had I not graduated early I could have also finished my minor in Spanish, I took an acting class, I took a dance class (and I am a TERRIBLE dancer!)…anything I was interested in trying or doing, there was room for it. In fact, the major requires a certain number of electives. I graduated an extremely well-rounded and open-minded person.
2. Along those same lines, the major gives you room to teach yourself a lot of new things.
Through various jobs, internships, and PR-related extracurricular activities, I held roles that allowed me to experiment with different styles of writing, graphic design programs, web design, etc. For over a year after graduating, I completed several ongoing freelance writing and graphic design jobs, which I got from creating myself a personal website and showcasing my skills. I am no expert in these areas, but all of these skills were completely self-taught and many of them are still things I use today even in a completely unrelated field (I have been in my current job since March and have already completely re-designed a website, have designed many fliers, have managed social media accounts, etc.)
3. Group projects, as much as we all hate them, make communications students more patient and well-rounded.
I will start by saying that as a student I hated how much of a central focus group projects often were in the communications programs. Professors always said they, “Prepare you for the real world because you have to work in groups in the real world.” My response as a student (in my own head) was always “Yeah but in the real world if someone doesn’t pull their weight, they will be fired.” Well, as I am sure we can all attest, that is not necessarily true! I’m sure we have all worked with someone where we wonder, “Wait, how do they still have this job?” It’s an unfortunate reality and I’ve realized that my professors weren’t totally wrong.
With that being said, I have taught college-level classes myself, and I try to keep group projects to a minimum. I think with everything we expect of college students these days (paying jobs, unpaid internships, extracurriculars, etc.), combined with the influx of “non traditional” aged students, it is unfair to expect students to work around each other’s schedules and be able to produce high quality work together where they all do an equal amount of work. I don’t think it is fair to make major portions of people’s grades dependent on the actions of others. However, regardless of my personal ambivalence toward group projects, the fact is that communications majors will do A LOT of them. And while these projects definitely have their drawbacks, these students will be more patient, will have the ability to work with a wider variety of people, and will overall gain a broader sense of professionalism.
4. The major forces you to build a resume very early.
My university’s PR program did not have specific internship requirements, but the importance of internships within the field was drilled into our heads from day one, and was reiterated throughout all of our classes and in PR-related organizations. Many mass communications programs around the country do have specific numbers of internships you must complete to graduate. During my time in college, I did PR and graphic design for a summer camp, I was an editorial intern for an educational nonprofit, I did marketing for a major restaurant opening in my hometown, I wrote articles for a local website that showcased unique stores and restaurants, I interned at a magazine in Shanghai, China where I had four articles published over the course of a summer and helped edit many others, I re-designed a student organization’s website and ran their newsletter — and these are just some of the major examples. I think college and formal education is great, but there are some things you can only learn in “the real world” and I don’t think I would have had so much professional experience upon graduating if I had a different major.
5. Communication skills, particularly written communication skills, permeate every field.
The ideas in this post have been floating in my head for awhile, but I was inspired to sit down and write it after my friend Jess accepted a position as an adjunct professor at the same university where she and I were both PR majors, and wrote an open letter to her class that included this paragraph:
I hope to show you that the world of public relations can offer you endless career possibilities. I love public relations. If this is your major, I applaud you. You’re smart. You’re savvy. Know why? Because these skills that you’re developing can be applied to literally any industry or sector. Writing and clear communication will always be skills employers are seeking. And you have them! In my career so far, I’ve worked in communications at a hospital, a winery, a destination, a historic site, with an author and more. I’m not necessarily experts in any of these topics, but my skills are translatable. And yours will be, too. The world is your oyster.
This sentiment is so true; even if, like me, you don’t stay in the field of public relations. Since graduating, I have had such a wide variety of jobs where my communication skills, especially writing skills (I had no idea how much of the communications industry focused on writing when I initially signed up for the major), have played an important role. I have written movie reviews, I conducted research and ghost writing for a book, I have taught English as a Second Language, I have worked at nonprofits and helped with grant writing initiatives, I have had to tailor messages and programming to a wide variety of audiences, many of whom come from different personal or cultural backgrounds than myself…the list goes on. My first “real” full time job that took me in the direction of the field I was getting a master’s in involved being an assistant to the PR/development person. Within six months after proving myself I was able to move into the educational programming at the organization, but the background in communications got my foot in the door. I have many friends in so many different fields that encounter unexpected communications-related aspects of their job on a regular basis.
A few days ago, I had an issue at work that is not worth explaining here in full, but long story short one of my program’s funders wanted me to post something on my program’s social media site, because the person/program that was really supposed to post on their page hadn’t been able to. The info wasn’t really related directly to my program but we wanted to thank an outlet for their media coverage in some way. In the donor’s e-mail, he said something like, “I trust as the manager of this program you will be able to make the connection between the two programs when you post it so that it makes sense.” Honestly, this is not necessarily a skill that just anyone in my position would have. I have met a ton of education/youth development professionals that are AMAZING at their jobs, with a ton of experience, who do great work and I aspire to reach their levels in my own career path, but who also do not necessarily excel in writing or “mass” communications. They may do great with kids, or parents, or whomever their main stakeholders are, but their area of expertise does not necessarily include quickly coming up with social media copy that gets a point across to a variety of audiences. These people often ask me to help them when they do need to craft a specific message, write a certain e-mail, or make something sound a certain way. Again, I have a ton to learn from these people, but I also have a set of skills that I can bring to the table to help them. These abilities have allowed me to advance quickly within my career and have given me leverage to ask for higher salaries than I may have otherwise been able to within my field, because overall I make a more well-rounded employee.
And finally, one disclaimer.
I want to be clear that I’m not suggesting that a communications major is right for everyone or that it is “the best” major that exists. I’m also not suggesting that everyone make the choice I made, and choose a more liberal arts-focused major even when they had the skills and aptitute to succeed in a STEM field. I am well aware that our country has hundreds of thousands of STEM jobs that need to be filled, and I am all for encouraging students to enter those fields — particularly students who are currently under-represented in those areas (e.g. women and minorities.) I think we as a society need to make sure that ALL students have access to high-quality STEM experiences as they grow up so they can make the choices that are best for them, and I strongly believe that in low-income communities in particular, entering STEM careers could help young men and women break years of generational poverty. I am only describing the choices that worked for ME and trying to explain that other degree areas have merit, too. I grew up with a fair amount of privilege, and I had access to STEM experiences and I was consistently reminded by parents and teachers that I would succeed in these areas if I entered them. I decided that this path was not right for my needs and interests, but again, I am all for making sure all young people have the same access to these opportunities as I did and making sure that everyone knows what options are available to them so they can make their own choice.
That being said, I think we as a society need to stop acting like a communications degree has no value. We all need to forge the path that is best for ourselves, and I think we would all do well to judge each other’s choices a little less. This is a degree with a ton of transferrable skills, and I can thank my strategic communications/PR degree for laying the foundation for all the skills that have made me a successful nonprofit and education professional today.
