Is Communications a Bullshit Major?

Yes, it is. But who cares, do what makes you happy, not everybody's an intellectual.

At my college the major is called IPCO (Interpersonal Communications). We said it stood for I Personally Copped Out of a real major.

Anything can be a BS major if you aren't serious about it. Conversely, you can turn an "easy" major into a great academic experience.

What do you say to a Communications Graduate at work?

Can you supersize that for me please?

Any major can be made a BS major to some degree (obviously not pre-med etc. but you know what I mean). Comm and phys Ed aren\'t BS majors, its just that some people that take them don\'t take it seriously. And elementary Ed.. are you kidding? No way thats a BS major.. would you want to spend most of your days student teaching and doing all that? We should all be greatful for elementary ed majors.. who would teach our kids?

To the original poster.. as far as your teammates being comm majors.. you\'re at the same school so I wouldn\'t criticize their intelligence since you\'d be criticizeng your own as well.

what is it that you think elementary ed. majors do? learn addition, subtration, and simple multiplication? how to spell "people"? learning how to teach, maintain attention of the kids, learn signs for learning disabilities and other problems, etc. it ain't a joke.

as to communications being a bullshit major: try taking communications at yale. ain't gonna be bullshit there. communications isn't physics or something, of course. but then, physics at harvard isn't physics at your school, either.

as others have said on this thread and others before it, anything can be a bullshit major if you want it to be. you can make your collegiate experience as easy or as hard as you want by choosing easy or hard courses or putting in just the requisite effort and no more to get the grade you want.

Lets be honest elementray teachers are retarded. They all get brain washed at liberal schools and get even dumber than they alredy are.

well, they sure know how to spell and compose grammatically correct sentences better than you do. i'd peg you as a communications major.

just because someone teaches children additon/subtraction and what not does not mean they dont know all the advanced stuff...in most cases you cant just major in elementary ed. you have to pick something to go along with it, i.e math elementary ed. english or history also, so you need the math major also...and you cant pass the teachers tests just knowing how to add, try taking it, its pretty hard

Actaully, elem ed majors don't learn how to add an subtract. They learn about the philosphies of education, phsycological development, and much more. I'd like to see you try and manage a classroom of 30 7 year olds after recess, good luck! And no, I'm not an elem ed major, I just think people should have the respect they deserve.. bash people if you must, but don't stereotype people b/c they enjoy enriching the lives and minds of young people.

Freedom One wrote:

Lets be honest elementray teachers are retarded. They all get brain washed at liberal schools and get even dumber than they alredy are.

Another great post from Freedom One. With this one and your post on the South Park thread, you're 2-for-2 at looking like an ass.

Strong communication skills, both writen and oral, are key skills in any work setting so I would say Communications is not on par with Phys. Ed or El Ed in terms of being a joke major. If your teamates take it seriously they can go to Law School or continue their education in studying something else at grad school. So although not as tough as Biomechanical Engineering, Communications is not a joke of a major.

dick,

you must have missed the post on the affirmative action thread. a stunning triple crown for Freedom One.

chuck d wrote:

what is it that you think elementary ed. majors do? learn addition, subtration, and simple multiplication? how to spell "people"? learning how to teach, maintain attention of the kids, learn signs for learning disabilities and other problems, etc. it ain't a joke.

as to communications being a bullshit major: try taking communications at yale. ain't gonna be bullshit there. communications isn't physics or something, of course. but then, physics at harvard isn't physics at your school, either.

as others have said on this thread and others before it, anything can be a bullshit major if you want it to be. you can make your collegiate experience as easy or as hard as you want by choosing easy or hard courses or putting in just the requisite effort and no more to get the grade you want.

Please tell me you're kidding about Yale having a communications major.

at my university, it was called "rhetoric and communications." the communications half was all BS, but the rhetoric side was actually quite interesting--combination of philosophy, history, and literature. requires critical and analytical thinking skills, which most college graduates do not have. i would rather hire a rhetoric major (as opposed to a communications major) to any other social science major any day.

it was all the people on the swim team and sorority chicks who majored in this. my roommate was a rhet/communication major. i told him it was a joke and took a few classes and I got A-plus grades. they brought my GPA up nicely. so i decided to double major in this, in addition to econ--i did graduate with honors in econ, so i did put in some effort, even though id consider an undergrad degree in econ a BS major too (unless you actually pursue a real job or graduate studies in econ). i went on to grad school, btw.

now, the university has done away with the rhetoric portion of the major altogether, so now it's just a communications major.

Barbara Bush (The twin sister) received a degree in humanities from Yale. Hope that answers your question.

yes it is a joke! you dont acquire communication skills by being a communications major.

i remember in my media studies class, i had to write some paper on i forget what the assignment was, but it was worth alot of my grade, and i ended up writing a paper on how tv mothers have changed over the years--no reasearch, just based it on my experience watching too much TV. my paper was essentially a piece of BS that could have come out of TV Guide. and I got an A in all my communications classes.

again, i chose communications as a second major to boost my GPA and b/c for some reason, certain employers think it looks good on a resume--the formal major name was "Rhetoric & Communiactions"--it was really rhetoric that i was and still am interested in.

It's definitely a huge step above those two. Many Comm programs demand excellence and are heavy on the journalism.

First, it's "Communication," not "CommunicationS." Second, it's not a skills-based major. Although Comm. Departments typically offer a public speaking course, scholars studying Comm. do not study communication skills. Communication Studies or Science, as a field, typically focuses on studying human interaction. Much of the work is applied in contexts like personal relationships, organizations, or health context. Mass media can be included in this but is often in a different department. My research, for example, focuses on the ways in which people make sense of health information on the Web.

As for it being a bullshit major, I think the same can be said for almost any undergraduate major. The thing about undergraduate studies is that you really don't learn much about anything. All the action is in the research published in peer-reviewed journals. And, for undergraduates, research typically gets boiled down or dumbed-down into textbook form. That's not to say that an undergraduate education is worthless; I think it is a very valuable educational and social experience. However, in terms of research, all you get is the surface stuff-- pre-chewed.