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Before I came to Delaware, I decided to change my major from English (which I had put on my application) to Communication. I want to be a journalist, and since this university does not offer journalism as a major, I researched communication, and it sounded like it might be the thing for me. I thought I would go on the broadcast journalism track, and all my college dreams would come true. Perfect.
Then I found out how one actually gets into the communication major. For those of you not familiar, students take four core classes and at the end of sophomore year, or whenever those four classes are finished, they let the top 100 people into the major. I have taken three out of four of these classes. All were held in lecture halls. And in these three classes, I have taken nine multiple choice tests. And this is where I see a huge problem.
I would say it’s understandable that the major can only take 100 people, but it’s really not. If there is such a high demand of students that not everyone can be accepted, and this has been happening for a few years, maybe, just maybe, they should expand the faculty and try to accommodate the demand. I doubt that this is going to happen, but it is worth mentioning.
So we’re back to only 100 people getting into the major. If this procedure is going to stay in place, changes need to be made, since this creates a number of problems.
Multiple choice tests tell nothing about a student, just that they study a lot and are good at tests. And considering it’s a communication major, I’m going to guess and say there are a lot of people vying for those 100 spots whose strengths lie in writing, rather than test-taking. I could be wrong, but if you look at the class average of the first exam in the Introduction to Communication Research Methods course this year, I would say I’m not too far off.
Professors say that students should always come to them, make themselves known, the usual spiel. But that’s not going to get them into the major. Having an intelligent conversation with a professor, no matter what they try and say, is not going to make a person’s test score go up. I’ve often heard that interested students who go to their professors do better, but I can tell you—I’m very interested in learning. I’m just bad at taking tests.
Ultimately, my biggest issue comes financially. I want to say I pay close to $30,000 a year when all is said and done to go to school here. I’m not paying this much money to play around with my future and not find out if I have gotten into the major until the end of my sophomore year. And then what if students don’t get in? Changing your major after sophomore year is difficult, and I’m sure there’s plenty of students who end up having to stay more than four years, which is more money being drained out of bank accounts.
So by all means, keep your 100 students in the communications major if that seems to be what’s best, but something needs to be done when it comes to going about how students actually get in.
Perhaps the major should have a separate application when applying to the school. This is probably a little bit more accurate than test scores. If students are transferring into the major, have them fill it out too. Keeping the idea of the classes would be okay, but spreading them out over two years is difficult.
Having smaller size classes with a mixture of tests and papers is another idea. There’s very little communication in these lecture classes, so a smaller class size would allow for a participation grade, and having both tests and papers would play to the strengths of both types of students in the classes.
Finally, just have some sort of interview process. This is a communication major after all, and if a student cannot speak or interact well, why should they be in the major? Tests don’t talk, but people do.
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11 comments
In my opinion, the reason for accepting so few students into the major is to avoid diluting the U.D. brand of students. As it is now, if employers look around and see that the majority of U.D. grads are business executives, CPA's, engineers, and scientists, then the college starts to look pretty good on a resume. Conversely, if more students were allowed to take communications as a major, then many more of our grads would be...well, unemployed.
If you're worried that your tuition is being wasted, try taking any science degree. Instead of being graded on your ability to write e-mails, speak, and make posters; you'll instead be graded on your abilities of intuition, reasoning, comprehension of abstract concepts, and effectiveness at problem solving. It's worth mentioning that starting salaries for those with technical degrees are in the $50k range, at the very least.In all seriousness, there is very little use for a degree in communications. Just about anything that you could do with that degree could also be done with a bachelors in visual arts or business, and those cases, you'd have many more options open to you. Consider a switch, before it's too late.