What is Communication Studies?
Formal Definition
Communication studies is a field of academia that examines the process of human communication, including the creation, delivery, and receiving of both verbal and non-verbal messages.
My Personal Definition
For me, Communication Studies is a lens. This lens gives us a fresh perspective, an inside look into how and why we communicate. This lens is an awareness of us and how we portray ourselves and our story. It's a lens that helps us better communicate-to be seen and heard. To take information and interpret it so that we can effectively communicate it to our audience. It's a tool that I've been given to not only succeed in the classroom but in the world as well.
Learning Objectives
Communicate, reflect, and engage in a diverse society.
Spring semester of my Junior year, I had the opportunity to study abroad in Newcastle, Australia! This was truly one of the best experiences of my life. Using communication skills that I had adopted throughout my college career allowed me to communicate effectively with others of different backgrounds and truly immerse myself in a different cultures.
My deep appreciation for communication lies in how fluid it is in every aspect of our lives. It’s a skill that we rely on everyday to push us forward and most of the time. Most times, we aren’t even aware of the true implications that communication has. Whether it’s sharing information, forming relationships, or establishing your wants and needs, understanding how and why we communicate will ultimately shape a more united world. During my four years, the University of Alabama has instilled in me various skills such as critical thinking, a deep understanding of interpersonal communication and public speaking. It’s these skills that have allowed me to understand this change in cultural contexts and adjust accordingly. It’s these skills that have allowed me to deliver countless speeches across multiple different platforms and connect with others in order to create a cohesive and successful environment. I feel confident in my ability to present myself and share my message with the world. Using the techniques and methods that I’ve acquired throughout my undergraduate career, I am able to identify what my own cultural context is and have developed a knowledge/appreciation for the various cultures that exist all around me. I am able to effectively communicate with others in order to create a more cohesive and harmonious environment. I am able to critique others' messages in order to further my education and understanding of the world around me. I am able to take a message from another cultural context, break it down, and recreate it in a way that makes it easier to understand and comprehend.
For my Senior Capstone Seminar (COM 499) course, I was tasked with writing a cultural context paper discussing my personal cultural context and how I've come to understand it better and use it in order to help me communicate more effectively. Click the button to download my paper and read more about it!
Digest Complex messages, analyze fast-moving information flows, and craft effective responses that increase your influence.
Throughout my college career, I was able to learn various theories and models of communication that have ultimately reprogrammed how I view and perceive the world around me. It was through Advanced Public Speaking (COM 323) that I was able to take this new perception of the world along with my values and beliefs and craft effective "responses" to current conditions, issues, and concepts that I deemed important. To the right are two speeches that I delivered in my Advanced Public Speaking course. The top speech was a 30-second informative speech about whichever topic we chose. I'm very passionate about the environment and felt called to do my speech on the harm of single-use plastic. I was able to take my belief (single-use plastic is harmful to the environment) and effectively craft a short speech in order to best educate my classmates on this topic. The bottom speech was the final speech that I delivered in this course. This speech was supposed to resemble a Ted-Talk about a chosen topic. I decided to do the power of habits: how to form them and why they are so important. Despite this being a significantly longer speech, I felt confident in my topic as well as my ability to deliver all the necessary information. These two speeches demonstrate my ability to take different messages and craft them in a way that any intended audience could understand.
Develop and maintain healthy professional and personal relationships.
Communication Studies has given me the tools and knowledge to strengthen my communication skills so I can be a more effective communicator. Not only have these skills improved my ability to communicate, but my relationships as well. Interpersonal Communication (COM 220) broke down different relationship dynamics and explained how communication played a huge role in how these dynamics functioned. This course taught me how to appropriately manage interpersonal conflict-which can be incredibly useful both in a personal and career setting, reduce barriers by executing effective listening techniques-being a more active listener, how to encode and decode emotions in yourself and others, understand the ambiguous nature of verbal and nonverbal channels-analyzing communication while keeping in mind how different mediums influence our perception.
Here I am with Wilma Johnson Wilbanks, the Delta Gamma International President at this past founder's day ceremony. Communication studies have given me both the skill and confidence to form and build professional relationships with others. I've had the privilege of establishing connections with my classmates, my instructors, and professionals in my intended industry all because I had the courage to reach out and the knowlegde of how to effectively express myself.
Not only have my professional relationships benefited from being a better communicator but my personal relationships as well. I have taken the skills that I've learned in the classroom and have applied them to every area regarding my relationships with my friends, family, and loves ones. I feel that I am a better listener, can be empathetic of others, and can ultimately communicate my own thoughts and feelings more effectively. Communication studies has helped me become a better daughter, sister, friend, student, and person.
Engage in civic life and organizations as leaders and effective team members.
From a young age, I was drawn to volunteering. My mom is an active volunteer in our community and through her, I was raised to lend a helping hand whenever possible. This love has only grown-especially over the past few years. I've enjoyed not only volunteering in my local community of New Jersey but also the Tuscaloosa area as well. Throughout college, I became a frequent volunteer at the Pine Valley Retirement home right here in Tuscaloosa as well as the Alabama Institute for the Death and Blind in their childcare facility. Back in my hometown of Cape May, I often volunteer for the Lunch with Lynch Foundation which does a series of amazing projects that benefit the community. Some of these projects include the Pinch the Grinch Toy Drive, Lunch with Lynch School Lunch Project, and Thumbs Up for Kindness- which focuses on spreading positivity around the community. Volunteering has ultimately taught me what it means to be a leader in my community and how impactful giving back to the community is.
Through volunteering and joining organizations such as Delta Gamma Fraternity, Best Buddies, Crimson Kindness, and Circle K I've discovered what it means to be both a leader and a positive member in order to run a successful organization especially one that influences. I feel confident in my role to be a good team player not only in my organization but in my community as well and I encourage others to give back and get involved whenever possible.
This is a picture of my best friend Taylor and I at the annual Pinch the Grinch Toy Drive Delivery. On the morning of Christmas Eve first responders and volunteers help to deliver presents around the city of Wildwood to families who need some extra assistance during the holiday season. I've been volunteering at this event for nine years and it's always one of my favorites!
Understand and apply communication theories and scholarship to relevant contexts in your life.
Throughout my four years, I've college, I've been fortunate enough to take a plethora of communication studies courses that I've not only benefited from but enjoyed as well. One area of communication that I have particularly enjoyed has been the study of rhetoric and how our understanding of it impacts our lives. I've had the privilege of taking two rhetoric courses that have had a positive influence on my ability to communicate my thoughts and ideas about various topics. In Rhetorical Criticism (COM 310) I was familiarized with theories and methods regarding communication and how we interpret it. I was able to understand and execute both a descriptive and analytical approach to critiquing language by viewing a series of written works and speeches. I was also able to gain an appreciation for different forms of symbolic expression and their impact on civic life. While in this course, I engaged in the practice of analyzing artifacts beyond the fundamental types of rhetorical-critical methods, including identifying and applying secondary, academic research to an analysis. In conclusion to this course, I wrote a rhetorical criticism research piece on The Ballad of Cleopatra a music video by the popular indie band, The Lumineers. In this paper, I was able to take multiple theories and methods that I had learned and use them to analyze this video and the message it communicates.
Another class that I have taken similar to this was Rhetoric and Pop Culture (COM 340). In this course, we used rhetoric to dissect different components of pop culture and today's media. This was a fascinating course that forced us to think critically and "outside of the box" for every artifact that we studied. We looked at films, sports fandoms, and various other factors that make up today's pop culture narrative. We applied theories, methods, and different lens in order to dissect the message that was being communicated. In conclusion to this course, I wrote a short paper examing the film, The Legend of Tarzan, through the White Savior Narrative lens. I used this lens as well as other theories in order to best critique this film and the underlying message.
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Over the past four years, I've learned a plethora of theories, methods, and models of communication that have allowed me to excel in my studies, strengthen my communication skills, and ultimately view the world in a more critical way. I've been able to successfully apply these components through various papers, speeches, and in-class discussions throughout my college career. I feel confident in my knowledge of these areas and feel that the critical thinking skills that I've obtained help me view the world in a fresh and dynamic new way.
Click the buttons below to download my papers discussed above!
“Communication works for those who work at it.”
John Powell