As a student at Penn State, I cross paths with hundreds of students every day with different backgrounds, different upbringings, different personalities, different preferences, and so on. Of all these defining qualities, I've found that most significant by which people identify themselves is their major. By junior year of college, students roughly have an idea of what they want to be and where they want to be post-grad. Students become proud of their accomplishments within their major and learn to love the work they do. With that being said, there are few things more annoying to me, and I'm sure many others, as a student than having your major made fun of and questioned.
I am an extremely PROUD communications student. I have worked my butt off over the last 3 years to get me where I am today. Every single day I dream of my dream job at the top of a huge PR firm in New York City. Every decision I make now, I think how it can help me better my future and become more successful.
But the most discouraging thing is when my peers claim that by being a communications major I'm a "cop-out". Apparently, my major means I took the "easy" way out since I don't sit through hours and hours of accounting and finance or chemistry and physics. We all learn at an early age in school how our brains work and what our strengths are, and then for the rest of our education we play into our strengths and choose our careers from that. Just because my communications and creativity skills are stronger than my math and science doesn't mean I'm taking the easy way out.
If anything, comm majors are the most "on top of their shit/try hard" kind of people. I personally am involved in Valley Magazine, Public Relations Student Society of America, Happy Valley Communications, Greek life, an internship, writing for Odyssey, work at the gym, and an independent studies program. While all this does sound like a lot and I am constantly running around all day every day, this is what most comm majors are all like! We all work our butts off day in and day out taking advantage of every opportunity we have at school to prepare ourselves for the real world.
Most of my friends are business majors or something similar, and while I respect all the work they do, they barely take part in any organizations to learn from and get involved. Comm kids HAVE to be running around because for us to be the most successful, we need to have the most colorful resumes, experiences, and stories! I am so proud to be a crazy comm kid and working myself to the bone because the most important thing is that in a year when I graduate I will have experienced my full four years of being involved, learning, and truly getting the most of all my classes!
Next time you go to assume the engineering student is a socially awkward nerd, the IST student is a computer geek, the agriculture student is a red neck farmer, take a second to reflect on yourself and think about all the hard work each and every student does here to follow their passion!
