As a student of Communication and Media Studies, I have learned many important skills that I will take with me into the world after graduation. Being able to communicate effectively is, in my opinion, one of the most important skills a person can have, and being a Communication and Media Studies major has helped me develop this skill in many different areas in life, from interpersonal to intrapersonal to large-group communication. There are a few classes that stand out to me as being essential in the development of my communication skills. The first is Business and Professional Speaking. I took this class with Dr. Antos, and I cannot tell you how much I grew over the course of one semester. I went from being terrified to get up in front of the class and speak for two minutes with a script to confidently giving a fifteen-minute speech with no script. This class was huge in helping me begin to overcome my fear of public speaking.
Dr. Kretz’s Mass Communication Theory was also a really fantastic class because it gave me experience in conducting my own research. Research is something I am interested in pursuing in the future, so being able to get experience in this process was very valuable. One other class that has been important in enhancing my communication skills is one I am currently in, Dr. Morgan’s Communication and Emotional Well-Being. Intrapersonal communication is a category of communication that I think gets overlooked but is one of the most important, so being able to take a class about the effect communication has on emotional well-being has been really interesting. Overall, I think being a Communication and Media Studies student is about learning how to interact more effectively with the world around you and having an understanding of different methods of communication in the media and their effects.
I have an emphasis in Media Studies, and the classes I took on this topic introduced me to a number of interesting scholarly perspectives. I got to explore topics such as the influence social media has on body image, LGBTQ+ representation in books and in television, the influence of the Harry Potter series on political opinions, and the relationship between aggression and participation in Premier League fandom. One of the experiences I had during my time as a Communication and Media Studies was participating in a collaborative research project with Dr. Kretz. Our research focused on the potential for edutainment television to be used as sexual assault prevention education on college campuses. This experience was one of the best ones I had as a Communication and Media Studies student because of how applicable it will be to what I want to do after college. Getting to work one-on-one with an expert in the field helped me learn so much about the research process that I would not have been able to learn otherwise.
An out-of-the-classroom experience I had was an internship for a year as a blog writer in the marketing department at Unity Hospice. While I learned many great things about blog writing and what it would be like to work in a marketing department, this internship made me realize that the last thing I want to do is work in a marketing department. I think this was a really important experience to have, though, because it turned me away from a path that was not right for me and allowed me to find the path I am going down now. After graduation, I will be attending the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in pursuit of an MS in Library and Information Science. I feel that this degree will nicely combine both my English and Communication and Media Studies majors to put me on the path to my goal of becoming an academic librarian. While I am unsure of the specific area I want to work in, I would like to continue to conduct research, share my love of literature, and ensure access to information for marginalized groups, especially those in the LGBTQ+ community. Another area I am interested in is music librarianship and utilizing the skills I learned during my time as a Music minor. I believe that the skills I have learned as a Communication and Media Studies student at St. Norbert will be integral to my future educational pursuits and eventual career.
