<p>Is it a poor decision to major in this for future career path?</p>
<p>My son is strongly considering this major and has taken a couple of communication classes. He is a pretty good writer and speaker. He is not all that interested in journalism as a concentration. What can you do with this major? At his school communications is the degree and then one concentrates in one area. First everyone takes several of the same core classes and then the concentrations break down into:</p>
<p>organizational communications
relational communications
sports communications
media studies
journalism</p>
<p>I know absolutely nothing about the field of communications, but it seems out of these concentrations the one that would be best for job prospects might be sports communications. Unfortunately, my son does not have any interest in that area.</p>
<p>I would love to read the good, and the bad from those who are familiar with this major and employment in this area. I am interested in knowing more about employment right out of school, as well as for the long term/career.</p>
<p>I was a speech major before there was speech communications. My first job (everybody laugh) was as an admissions counselor! I then got a job as a writer for a small advertising group. Then went back for a master’s degree in journalism and worked for a while as an editor. I now teach at a community college. </p>
<p>Top communication skills–both writing and speaking–are sought after by many companies and organizations.</p>
<p>In my company, the top communications guys get paid a lot more than your typical engineers (who are quite well-paid).</p>
<p>We were visited by relatives of my wife this past summer. The husband and wife were both communications majors. He was in Boston to do presentations for his company and he was staying at one of the megabuck hotels. He talked about the major to our kids (daughter is interested in communications but will probably go with accounting).</p>
<p>I later found out that he was the head of the company - a global consulting firm.</p>
<p>We’re in a global marketplace so imagine all of the ways that companies can make errors in communications from language and cultural differences alone.</p>
<p>Those are my experiences with communications. I don’t know anything about how hard it is to find the first job for the major or how competitive things are but I do know that people can go quite far with the major.</p>
<p>Both my husband and I were communications majors. He took the fillm/TV/video path and I went corporate. Our careers have been good to us. We both turned internships into entry level jobs. </p>
<p>Right now, the hiring situation for new Comm grads is pretty slow. Sorry. But, what isn’t? However, I can say that to have a good shot, at least one internship is required. A resume without internship can be assured of instant rejection. Period. I’ve been a hiring manager multiple times. I speak from experience. </p>
<p>What can you do with this major? Well, of course there’s the obvious newspapers, TV, etc. But you can also go into HR or Marketing. (A Business minor would be very worthwhile.) Tourism needs Comm majors to run their promotions. Ad agencies need copywriters (consider English minor for this). New websites come online everyday. They need people to keep their content fresh and clear. The travel and hospitality industries need people to communicate with passengers and visitors. Governments are always communicating. </p>
<p>A Comm major is both a “vocational” major like teaching, nursing, etc., and a “thinking/liberal arts” major like English or Sociology. A wise student would choose a mix of courses to maximize this combination. That way, he could be positioned for first jobs that fall outside traditional comm fields. Sales, for example. </p>
<p>Communications majors catch a lot of flak on this site. But many of us who did choose the major are laughing all the way to the bank. I had two internships under my belt before graduating so that helped me tremendously. I’ve worked in video production, magazine production, advertising sales, corporate communications and for an advertising agency. However for the past nearly 20 years I’ve run my own business. In fact shortly after I started it I was busy enough to ask my husband to quit his job that he hated and we’ve worked together ever since.</p>
<p>IMO, creativity and the ability to think outside the box are very key to success in this business. I think it also helps to have an entrepreneurial spirit and be somewhat of a risk-taker.</p>
<p>There are people who major in this just because they don’t know what else to do. Chances are they’re not going to be successful. But for someone who goes into it with a love of the field and with a vision of the many possibilities, the opportunities are endless.</p>
<p>Thank you all. Keep the posts coming. It is a reassuring.</p>
<p>cbug, thank you for letting me know what types of jobs you have held, and about how many are laughing their way to the bank. I grew concerned because when I mentioned that my son was going to major in this area to a woman I was dining with, she said that this is not a good major for employment. I do not know anything about this field, but I just somehow think that my son is cut out for this major from the tiny bit that I do know. He has chosen it and we have not tried to sway him in any way.</p>
<p>Most companies have investor relations and communications/PR staffs. They make a decent living. Some move into corporate events planning. Stressful but can be fun and you meet lots of interesting people from speakers to bands/entertainers to caterers.</p>
<p>D is a rising senior at Newhouse; has had three paid internships the last three summers; already has a “tentative” job offer after graduation from one of them…</p>
<p>What it comes down to is whether we as parents let out kids go in the direction they have forged for themselves, even if if may be a “less profitable” road…</p>
<p>growing up, all I wanted to do was work in advertising…life got in the way and I had to take a “higher paying” job in a very different industry…all is fine, but, if possible, I wanted my kids to be able to do what they wanted to do in their careers…</p>
<p>so, while communications careers may or may not yield considerable monetary wealth, I wouldn’t deny a kid whose passions run in that direction…</p>
<p>Is there any way to blend communications with music and make a living? I could see my son doing a communications major if it had some sort of music component.</p>
<p>“I grew concerned because when I mentioned that my son was going to major in this area to a woman I was dining with, she said that this is not a good major for employment.”</p>
<p>Rubymom – You and your son will hear many remarks like that of your friend. My theory on that is as follows:</p>
<p>The majority of the people making these comments are from very safe, practical fields like business, engineering, health care, law, etc. These are fields that (in general) do not attract a highly creative mindset — therefore these people have never bothered to educate themselves on creative services professions. And since they don’t know about these professions they ASSUME that they are worthless or low-paying.</p>
<p>This is not to say that these professions are high-paying right off the bat. Your son will have to pay his dues in entry level jobs for a while before if can move up the ladder. But that’s no different than any other profession.</p>
<p>I teach Communication. Our department offers concentrations in journalism, public relations, advertising, television, radio, writing, and general communication. All of our students take a minor, which ranges from Environmental Science to English to Theatre to Digital Art to… It is the combination of two fields that often makes our graduates employable…and employed. </p>
<p>The top students are those who have taken the initiative to obtain internships and other experience (campus activities etc). I just received an email today from an alum who was in the front row covering the story when Obama was at the wreath-laying ceremony in NY. Like many other fields, there are skills to be learned and opportunities for advancement.</p>
<p>Go to natcom dot org and have a look at the Student Resources link for some ideas about careers.</p>
<p>The idea that you’re going to go to college to study a particular field, graduate and get a job in that field, as an entry to a long-term career in the same field is an outmoded “last-century” concept. Certainly there are accounting majors who may be lifelong accountants and nursing majors who become nurses, but the useful life span of content in any field is now so short that your college student will likely have trouble predicting the skills s/he will need in 20 years. I studied journalism in the '70s and learned to type articles into a typesetting machine which printed text on shiny, wet paper that had to be clipped to a clothesline to dry and then run through a machine that waxed the back side so that paragraphs could be cut out with scissors and stuck onto the mock-up of a page. Those skills are about as relevant now as knowing how to design buggy whips.</p>
<p>It’s written and verbal communication skills, team participation skills, and the ability to take information from different sources and disciplines and combine them into new understandings that will still be relevant in 20 years. A Communications degree is outstanding for that. But many of this year’s graduates will find their careers in fields that don’t even exist today. Thinking of college as a narrowly-defined straight line process to a field of today is no long a wise strategy.</p>
<p>^ Interesting thoughts Gadad. While I worked in the print industry later than you I still did manual keylining and pasteup. Like you said these skills are now obsolete but the skills I learned transferred to the computer design techniques I use today.</p>
Don’t forget your exacto knife for cutting the ruby lifts! ;)</p>
<p>When I was in college I would have choked on my beer if somebody told me I’d be using open source software as the content management system for my global intranet portal in 2011. :p</p>
<p>My view on this is more optimistic than many have expressed. Two years ago I was at a departmental graduation for about 200 communications majors, including my daughter, and a bit concerned about job prospects. But now, it seems that all of her friends in this major have good jobs in a variety of fields like marketing, public relations, college admissions, account management, and others. Many did not have internships. Most did not have a job at graduation, but after a few months of job hunting and now after more than a year of working for most of them, they seem have had successful starts to careers and seem to be self-supporting (or close to it) in a variety of jobs and geographical locations.</p>
<p>A communication prof here (note: for most departments, there isn’t an “s” at the end of the word). As others have noted, we often describe the major as a “flexible” one that can take you in a lot of directions (PR, human resources, journalism, event planning, media management … and I could go on and on). So it really DOES matter how you package the major with a minor or a concentration and whether you can find internship opportunities to support the job prospects. This is also a major in which the presentation of self in the resume and through the interview interview are really important. Luckily, we like to think that our students have these skills after a few years of our courses …</p>
<p>OneGirlsMom, thank you for posting this. How would a minor in psychology work? My son is pretty outgoing. He just finished his freshman year. He will have a chance to have an internship as a part of his undergrad work (this is required at his school) either junior or senior year. During his freshman year he did take on some leadership positions and did help to organize a couple of campus events. He was also elected to an office in student government and will serve during his sophomore year.</p>