What is communication as a major??

Hi! This is Erika from Japan :)

I am a communication major, however, before researching about colleges in the U.S. I did not know about this major because it is not a common major in my country. There are courses on communication, but communication is not offered as a major in most Japanese universities. This might be applicable to other countries as well, and that is why I want to talk about my major, communication, today!

The communication major itself is very broad. The chair of the Communication Department at UCSB states: “Communication is a versatile discipline that is vital to a wide array of careers including management, marketing, public relations, advertising, event planning, law, finance, government relations, social services, and media industry.  Our students find employment across a wide range of local, state, national, and global profit and nonprofit organizations.”

There are so many aspects in just the simple word “communication” that you can emphasize in. For example, there is interpersonal, intrapersonal, small group, organizational, intercultural, media, journalism, public relations, public speaking, health…. so many different categories of communication. Each university has its own focus in communication based on what the professors at that university are researching. If you are looking into the communication department in various schools, you have to make sure that they offer the courses that interest you. For instance, if you want to study interpersonal and intercultural communications but apply for schools without doing in-depth research about the department, you might end up in a school that focuses on media and journalism.

I personally was interested in the interpersonal, organizational aspect of communication that is closer to psychology than the journalism aspect. I am eager to learn how people directly communicate with others, such as how your attitudes can change others’ behavior or conflict management in specific cases. UCSB has professors that research those topics and provide interesting classes which is one of the reasons why I chose this school.

For those who have never heard of the communication major or do not know what exactly you can learn with it, I think it is definitely worth looking into the program in various universities or your own school because it is such a unique major (at least in my country) and the U.S. is one of the best countries to learn this subject!

Hope this helps :)

Reference

https://www.comm.ucsb.edu/about