Like many college programs, the Communication major does not train students for specific careers. Instead, the training you receive in the major or minor will provide you with a number of skills that can be applied to a wide variety of career paths.
Areas of Concentration in Communication
The following list comes from the National Communication Association. It identifies many different specialty areas you might encounter in Communication departments across the country. See if you recognize the ones we offer here at UWSP.
Applied Communication: The study of processes used to analyze communication needs of organizations and social interaction, including the design of training to improve communication between supervisors and employees.
Communication Education: The study of speech communication in the classroom and other pedagogical contexts.
Communication Theory: The study of principles that account for the impact of communication in human social interaction.
Family Communication: The study of communication unique to family systems.
Gender Communication: The study of gender and sex differences and similarities in communication and the unique characteristics of male-female communication.
Health Communication: The study of communication as it relates to health professionals and health education, including the study of provider-client interaction as well as the diffusion of health information through public health campaigns.
International and Intercultural Communication: The study of communication among individuals of different cultural backgrounds, including the study of similarities and differences across cultures.
Interpersonal Communication: The study of communication behaviors in dyads (pairs) and their impact on personal relationships.
Language and Social Interaction: The study of the structure of verbal and nonverbal behaviors occurring in social interaction.
Legal Communication: The study of the role of communication as it relates to the legal system.
Mass Communication and Media Literacy: The study of the uses, processes, and effects of mediated communication.
Mediation and Dispute Resolution: The study of understanding, management, and resolution of conflict in intrapersonal, interpersonal, and intergroup situations.
Organizational Communication: The study of the structures and processes of communication in workplace settings.
Performance Studies: The study of communication as performance, including its components, that is performer(s), text, audience, and context.
Political Communication: The study of the role that communication plays in political systems.
Public Address: The study of speakers and speeches, including the historical and social context of platforms, campaigns, and movements.
Public Relations: The study of the management of communication between an organization and its audiences.
Rhetorical Criticism: The study of principles that account for the impact of human communication between speaker and audience.
Semiotics: The use of verbal and nonverbal symbols and signs in human communication.
Small Group Communication: The study of communication systems among three or more individuals who interact around a common purpose and who influence one another.
Speech Communication: The study of the nature, processes, and effects of human symbolic interaction. While speech is the most obvious mode of communication, human symbolic interaction includes a variety of verbal and nonverbal codes.
Theatre and Drama: The study and production of dramatic literature.
Visual Communication: The study of visual data, such as architecture, photography, visual art, advertising, film, and television as it relates to communication.
© Copyright by the National Communication Association. Reproduced by permission of the publisher.
If you identified Interpersonal and Organizational Communication, Public Relations, and Mass Communication (what we call Media Studies), you're right! Those are our major emphasis areas. However, our curriculum does offer courses that focus upon several of the other areas of concentration, as well.
National and Regional Organizations
Helpful information about careers in Communication can be found by surfing through one or more of the Web sites for the organizations listed below.
The National Communication Association - NCA is one of several national organizations for Communication educators and professionals. This site contains information about becoming a student member of NCA, which entitles you to discounted resources (such as journals) and lower fees for conference attendance.
The International Communication Association - ICA is another major national organization to which professionals and educators belong. ICA also offers discounted student memberships.