Some people are Comm majors, and most aren't. I just happen to be one of the few that are. Most of my friends are senior business majors, and they are all complaining about how "hard" policy is, and rightfully so. I have no disputes over that. Hence, why I chose a major that I can stress over, and yet still have some fun at the same time. Now, granted, we Comm majors only have 46 credit hours to do before we have completed our course, and our capstone is just a resume, five-year plan, and we had to explain which one of the projects we did during our time here was our favorite. That class was meant to be somewhat simple. You've completed your hard courses. All that is beside the point.
Our other courses are far more gruesome that what most people believe. That's not to say other majors are not as challenging. I'm sure there are courses out there that have people losing countless hours of sleep, or having mental breakdowns during class. I've seen it all. I've done it all. Especially when you're editing a video and your audio is a half second too fast or too slow, and you've been working on the same thing and staring at the same screen for about two hours at 3 a.m. You can bet your bottom dollar I'm going to McFreakin' lose it. Or when your entire project gets deleted off your hard drive and the project is due in 20 minutes. I've watched a kid bang his head on the wall because he was that stressed out.
The Comm major, on the contrary, isn't all sunshine and rainbows. You can be good with textbook, written, and verbal skills, but not with the technical skills. And vise versa. But let me ask you this: Have you ever sat through a class on media law with the most bland professor who doesn't know how to engage the class? Probably not. Do I wish that boredom on anybody? Not one bit. While you can make fun of my classes all you want, saying, "You learn how to talk to people. How hard is that?" and my personal favorite, "You literally do nothing!" It's sooo much more than that. It's taking hours upon hours out of your day, oftentimes on the weekend or past midnight, to write a script in the right format, create all our elements (i.e. intro/outro, segues, bumpers, etc.), not to mention you have to know how to work the board and the operating system without completely messing it up. All these things take time and practice; trust me, you won't get it in one try. And as far as the television side of things, it's not just pointing a camera at someone's face; you have to know how to use Chryon, Chroma Key, switcher board operations, and how patch microphones. It's having all your work turned in by a certain deadline for a grade, or you pretty much fail. There is no skipping classes either; you will be miles behind everyone and you won't be able to catch up. Please, for the love of God, tell me that's easy, and I will prove you wrong a million times over.
To be fair, I can understand that most people make a mockery of the Comm major because let's be real; big time athletes only take it so when they are finished with their professional playing career they can be an analyst on ESPN, or some other sports network. But what about the rest of us? What about those who are taking it because they thoroughly enjoy the art of communication? It isn't just about TV and radio. It's deeper than that. It's public relations, debate, mass communication, social media, etc. It is all these things, but most people tend to forget about all of that. They just see the "fun" things we do via TV and radio. Why take the major when all you do is complain about how time consuming is? That's stupid.
I get you want to make money, but you also want to do something that doesn't make you hate your life for all of eternity. Who wants to wake up angry, go to work angry, get out of work angry, and go to bed angry? Not me. After a while, it's not about the money. It's about enjoying what you do. And that's exactly what I'm doing. Do I have classes every day of the week? No. I have to have time do my work outside of class, and my professors understand that. Hence, why classes are usually one or two days a week, but from an hour and forty minutes to two and a half hours at a time. Plus, when I first started in the Comm department, there were only three full-time staff members. As compared to the bigger departments.
When in college, everyone swears that their major is harder than someone else's. That's what sets me over the edge. You don't know that for a fact. Just because you have to take umpteen more credit hours doesn't make it harder. The only exception to this are the math, science and teacher ed majors. Those are hard a.f. and extremely time consuming. So the day you come and sit in on one of my classes, will be the day that you might understand that being a Comm major is harder than you think. So don't come at us Comm majors with your stupid generalizations of "how easy we have it." we may hate our lives every day that we set foot in the Comm department building, but we sure do know how to have fun with it. The weekend benders. The all-nighters. The breakdowns. The laughter. They all make it worth it in the end.
