TJ Walker argues that, for most people, getting a formal communications degree is not worth it because academic communications programs often fail to teach real-world communication skills. He critiques professors and textbooks, notes employers often under-value communications majors, and recommends hands-on alternatives—daily social-media/video practice, blogging, podcasting, student media, and deep study in complementary academic fields (e.g., philosophy, statistics, MBA).
Chapters
Should you consider majoring in communications? Should you get a communications degree? I'm going to say in general, for most people, most of the time, the answer is no. Look, I'm not against academia. I'm not against accreditation. I want my medical doctor to have an md, I want my lawyer to have a JD but in my experience working in the communications field for more than 40 years, there's almost no correlation or an inverse correlation between people in the academic world of communication and actually being a good communicator. That's a fancy way of saying people who are teachers at communications departments at colleges and universities, for the most part, aren't very good communicators themselves. There are exceptions. Alexander Lyons, who's well known on YouTube, is a good communicator. He's also a communications professor. But by and large, most people I meet who come to my own trainings, who've also been trained in college, have nothing but negative things to say about their experience. They have professors in the Stone Ages who don't video record and give feedback to students. Or if they do it, they don't do it frequently enough. Once, twice, three times a semester is ludicrous. When any serious professional public speaking coach works with someone, myself included, we get you on camera a dozen times per day, not three times in a semester. Here's the bottom line. When it comes to communication skills, there are so many ways you can become great at communications and learn communication skills. Easiest way of all. Do a daily YouTube or social media video show segment a short program. It's impossible to do that on a daily basis without really improving your communication skills. Blog each day. That's a great way to improve your writing. Do a podcast. That's a fantastic way of learning interview skills. There's only a few times in life when you can really go deep into core principles, get foundational knowledge, whether it's in philosophy, whether it's in statistics, whether it's in critical thinking. I think your university time is far better spent doing that. And when you're in the university, write for your student newspaper. I did. Do commentaries for your student television station, radio station. I did that. You can learn a lot about communications when you are a student. And these days there's nothing preventing you from starting your own media business. Social media, video, audio, podcasting, blogging, self publish your own books. You can learn right now without having the stamp of approval from a university. The other thing, this is a little bit of a sensitive area. I don't mean to offend anyone, and I'm sure There are exceptions. I have found that most universities, certainly in the United States, in some cases around the world, do not respect their communications departments the way they do their economics department or their biology department, or certainly their med school or their law school. So what they tend to do quite often is come to people like me and say, hey, come teach a course at our university and we'll pay you nothing, we'll pay you prestige, we'll pay you cab fare, and you'll get to tell people you're a university professor. And that's just not the way you build a serious program. I'm talking about major universities that pay six figures, sometimes mid six figures. For professors in other fields like economics, communications professors are merely afterthoughts. Part of it is there's simply not a large body of knowledge that's incredibly useful to people who are communicating in the real world that has been packaged in the academic world for consumption by students. Most communication textbooks, in my opinion, are so poorly written because they are trying to appeal to academics who don't take you seriously without using lots of big words, complicated words, fancy words to show you're an insider. Well, that is the opposite of what good communication is all about. The other issue is, I have found most employers do not really respect a communications major. Now, if you have an MBA and you're a good communicator, there's a million places you can go. If you are a statistics major and you really know math and you're a good communicator, a lot of career options. But simply having a communications degree, whether it's an undergraduate degree, a master's degree, or a PhD degree, doesn't really help you with most employers, so. So can you still have a successful career as a communications major? Sure, if you're hard working and creative, you can be successful in any degree or no degree. I myself majored in philosophy, and that's something I'm glad I did because it taught me how to think critically, how to look at the origin of ideas, no matter where they're coming from. But am I telling you you need to major in philosophy to increase your job prospects? No, I'm not telling you that. Find something that you really enjoy and go deep in it. And if you happen to enjoy communications, then spend your time making your own videos, your own podcasts, your own books, and go deeper into a subject matter for your own area of academic focus.
