According to a recent study released by the Office of Student Services, Boston College's department of communications is this year's most popular department, boasting an enrollment of 843 students, outstripping the finance department by a slight margin. The popularity of the communications major also contributed to a significant rise of applications in the College of Arts & Sciences, with 6,058 undergraduate enrollments for the 2008-2009 academic year. Lisa Cuklanz, associate professor and chairperson of the communications department, said of this success, "It is consistent with trends and figures across the nation for the past decade." The media sector has undergone great development and new branches are created everyday, appealing to a wide range of freshmen still pondering the choice of their major. Cuklanz said "the combination of a challenging base of theory and methods, along with the promise of post-graduate employment in an expanding field," constitute the communications major at BC, with a wide variety of courses ranging from theory, methods, public speaking, and writing intensive courses. Students in this department prove mostly satisfied with the teachings, for they are offered diverse fields of study and can specialize in journalism, broadcasting, marketing or politics. James Leonard, A&S '10, is a double major in communications and politics. He said the communications major "really complemented" his other course of study thanks to "the wide variety of course options; from advertising, to PR, to production, to journalism, to law and intellectual property, to communication theory ... you can always find something you're really interested in within the study of communications."
The plurality of offered courses certainly allows students to choose a specific domain to focus on through the four years they spend experimenting with the diverse branches of communications. Such flexibility is often not available among the other A&S departments. Christine Staffon, A&S '10 and a student in communications, said the popularity of her major was due to the usefulness of the communication skills developed at BC. "Whatever market you go into, you will always need to know how to speak with others and get your ideas across," she said. Staffon said that she has thought about careers in marketing, advertising, and event planning and that she also considers communications "applicable to every job opportunity or career path."
Leonard mentions two internships, "One in the political science realm and one in communications. In 2007, I had a marketing internship for a video game production company. I didn't have many expectations going into it since it was the summer after my freshman year, but it was valuable experience nonetheless." Communications students are often able to find summer internships in the Boston area through the BC career center. Staffon, although his internship is not specifically linked to communication, said he has been "the campus campaign coordinator for Teach for America the past two years, where my job is to market the organization to seniors and encourage them to apply," and that he gained experience with human resources and was able to acclimate himself to organizing events and managing groups of people by participating in these events.
The demand for internships by students is strong, but the department "gets a lot of requests by companies who are looking for interns," said Elfriede Fursich, associate professor of communications. "The department's assistant to the chair, Christine Caswell, is coordinating internships for our students. As someone with significant media experience and close connections to many alumni, she has established connections to many companies," Fursich said. This situation is common at BC, as many courses are taught by part-time faculty who are also active in their field in the Boston area.
"In our modern society, the media controls so much about what we know about the world around us. Aside from the obvious prevalence of advertisement, we develop our ideas of places we have never been, and people we have never met purely by the media portrayal in movies, music, news, etc.," Staffon said. "It is extremely important to be media-conscious because many times we can become drawn into media portrayals when they may not be true, and we need to understand that media creates our reality."
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