https://files.uneportfolio.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/3470/2021/10/GUST-ESSAY-.pdf
Maddie McDonald
Professor Frank
FYS110
October 24th 2021
Communication at its Finest
Being in college undecided, the most famous followup question that comes after I tell people my major is Well do you have any idea about what you want to do? It feels good to finally say yes. Personally I’m not a math person nor am I a science person, but something I’ve always been interested in was English and writing. I can’t lie and say that I’m the best at writing or that I loved English all through my schooling, but in the grand scheme of things it’s definitely been a class I didn’t hate. For this project I explored the different aspects of communications and writing and I found out that it is something I might actually really enjoy. With the information I learned, I compared this major against American educator Ernest Boyer’s idea of an enriched major. This would be fulfilled by answering his three questions, those that I will elaborate on later. By talking to professors at the school, guided by the sources given to me in class, I was able to find something that caught my attention and then look into it more deeply.
Most students probably don’t compare their major to Boyer’s idea of an enriched major, but maybe that’s why it’s so common to change them. Although before taking FYS it isn’t something I would have done either. After reading Boyers’ take, I can connect it back to points made in previously read articles. In American journalist Sanford Ungar article ‘7 Major Misconceptions About the Liberal Arts,’ Unger talks about exactly what you’d expect, which is the misconceptions of the liberal arts. One of the concepts mentioned in Ungar’s article is that, “America is the only country in the world that clings to such an old fashioned form of postsecondary education as the liberal arts.” (Ungar 4). This quote goes with the idea of the enriched major because Boyer wants schools to start taking a different approach to education and majors, and leave this old fashioned approach to schooling behind. He believes that majors should not compete and rather that they should be intertwined with the essential parts of other programs as well. I agree with Boyer, I think it’s smart to look deeper into our majors and that it will end up being beneficial because we will be able to understand better what we’ll get out of the courses.
As I mentioned earlier, I looked into the communications major. More specifically the public relation and journalism aspect. The questions Boyer supplied helped me look further into the major as I concocted my own questions for my interview and did my own research. In his article, Boyer claims that, “by an enriched major we mean encouraging students to not only explore a field in depth, but also to help them put their field of special study into perspective. The major, as it is enriched, will respond to three essential questions: What is the history and tradition of the field to be examined? What are the social and economic implications to be understood? What are the ethical and moral issues to be confronted?” (Boyer 7). The essence of Boyers argument is that these are the questions we should be curious about, this is the goal of an education and using this idea will be how we find the right fit for ourselves. It’s not easy to suddenly just take such a deep dive into a major like he says, but using the right sources and talking to the right people will get you to where you need to be.
Does anyone really like the idea of having to interview a random faculty member that you’ve never met before? No, not usually because the idea is a little daunting, but just keep in mind that the aftermath is very rewarding and at least in my experience Jesse Miller (the man I interviewed) was not someone to be afraid of. Jesse Miller is professor at UNE who teaches in multiple genres of courses including fiction, poetry, journalism, composition, and of course communications. When I was coming up with questions to ask him, I related my ideas back to the idea of the enriched major. One of the questions was what was the history and how do you think the major will advance/has it reached its peak. To this he answered that this major has most certainly not reached its peak yet, it has gotten more popular, but since there are so many different aspects of it there is a lot of room to grow. These different aspects include the courses he teaches as well as the newer ideas of sports and entertainment media. He also mentioned that the communications major is under revision, meaning that although it is a relatively new major it is still being altered from its original form as it continues to broaden.
After interviewing him I actually looked forward to continuing looking into the major, and hearing his excitement toward my idea of a communications major and writing minor made me feel good about my choices. Specifically, this interests me after looking back to Ungars article where he claims that, “an astounding 89 percent of jobs said they were looking for more emphasis on ‘the ability to effectively communicate orally and in writing’ and almost as many urged the development of better ‘critical thinking and analytical reasoning skills’” (Ungar 2). I included this quote because I felt as though getting into the communication field would really help me develop the skills he mentioned, which makes me feel like maybe I actually do have the start of an idea of what I want to do with my life. Bold of me to say, I know.
It’s no easy task to put our lives together, though maybe figuring out my major could at least be the start for me. With the help of Boyers’ enriched major idea and Ungar debunking my common myths, I have seen that liberal arts isn’t the worst approach to college and it has actually guided me into hopefully finding the right path. Working their ideas together has helped me to see the different perspectives of picking a major, and showed me a deeper understanding of finding the correct fit. Now I’m not saying that I’ve found my place, or even close to it. I’m simply saying that by partaking in this project I have come the closest I’ve ever been to knowing what I’d want to do, and that’s got to mean something.
I definitely think that I gained something through doing this project. I really liked the majors that I looked at and I am hoping to take classes focused on communications and writing next semester. In a good way it surprised me to find out how broad communications was, and it was cool to kind of map out a route I could take to journalism or public relations. One things I’m still not sure of is exactly all the class requirements for this major, like if there is an aspect that I don’t yet know about. Its ok though because I am not yet making any big decisions, I just plan on testing out if this may end up being the major for me after all.
