Course Work

As a communication studies major I found these classes to be the most impactful.

Organizational Communication

Organizational Communication took a deep dive into how communication is the backbone of all organizations. In this class, we focused on studying theories of organizational power and structure, both by keeping journals that helped us understand how those theories are relevant to the workplace environment and by critiquing and analyzing workplace scandals at various companies. Click the button to read one of my journal entries. This class showed me that not only is a healthy workplace environment severely underrated, but there are effective ways to solve workplace issues. Having this understanding has made me more conscious of being a team player in my own work environment and has helped me become a better leader as well.

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Communication and Social Marketing

Communication and Social Marketing emphasized how messages can persuade human behavior. I enjoyed this class because we learned about marketing from a communication perspective; we were taught theories on persuasion, mass communication, behavior, and marketing strategies. During the course, our main project was to create a campaign that would go viral. My group presented a sustainable fashion campaign called how to be an ‘eco-hero,’ with the goals of this campaign being to spread awareness, education, and activism by partnering with local thrift stores, thrifting apps across the country, and slow fashion brands from around the world. Click the button to view this presentation. More than anything, this class taught me that social marketing is everything: if you have a great message, but it isn’t deliverable to a greater audience, then it’s just an idea. If, however, you employ basic social marketing tactics, that idea can be shared far and wide and can have a great influence on others.

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Rhetoric of the Body

One of my favorite communication courses is Rhetoric of the Body, which unpacked and explained how rhetoric about the human body interconnects with society. More than anything, the body is a nonverbal indicator of what society pushes. For example, having a modest dress code for female students indicates gender roles. This is just one of the many examples of how society pushes its values and power constructs onto our bodies. As part of the class, we were assigned to write a short critique of a current controversy about the body. I wrote about women and the debate over body hair. Click the button to read my paper. Through studying philosophers such as Michel Foucalt, and discussing theories on bodies, gender, race, and rhetoric itself, this class opened my eyes to just how loudly our bodies speak, and how important our bodies are in representing ourselves to the rest of society.

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