Chronicles of Higher Education

“And What Is a Communications Major?”

By Chris McVetta

Attending the usual networking events while searching for a job is something I usually dread. The scene is always the same and the one question always asked of me by some Shelley Levine in a leisure suit is, “So, young Christopher, what did you major in while studying at that state-funded, urban concrete university of yours…?”

“I am a Communications major,” I always respond with a naïve twinkle in my eye.

The generic partygoer usually gasps in horror, “Well, what are you going to do with that?”

Though Communications remains a mystery to the average person, it is nothing to fear or loathe. Communications is, simply put, the art of bullshit. That’s right, bullshit. Graduates in the Communications field are paid insane amounts of money to talk about, write about, and invent new ways to present bullshit.

If you are undecided on a college major, I highly recommend Communications. It’s one of the few fields, other than Philosophy, in which you can actually drink your way through college and come out with a better grade point average than if you had stayed sober.

No money for beer? Sell those burdensome Communications manuals! Communications majors don’t read, and those books are useless propaganda anyway. So sorry, Dr. Wayne W. Dyer, Eckhart Tolle, or any other self-help boogeyman out there: Print is dead. Long live the age of video!

What about research and reports, you may ask? More bullshit. My thesis for my Master’s degree is going to be on how Scrappy-Doo ruined Scooby-Doo’s show and why Freddy, Daphne, Velma and Shaggy always wore the same damn clothes day after day, thanks (in no small part) to a Nixon era recession. See what I mean?

Basically, the library serves no purpose for us. Oh, sure, those soundproof study cubicles were great for having sex in while at college but, other than that, Communications majors have no real purpose for that dusty old book building, do they?

It might seem Communications majors are the lowest members on the totem pole of education, but if college was the food chain equivalent of Stratego, Communications majors would be “the eights” and Philosophy majors would be “the nines.” In that light, Communications majors outrank, or could jump, Philosophy majors – but are vulnerable to just about everyone else.

Though Communications majors seldom read and are not up on most current events, they must, unfortunately, pretend to be in some social situations. Our entire foundation of knowledge rests upon sound bites gleaned from CNN (while searching for MTV2), or those bothersome “we interrupt our regularly-scheduled program…” that always seem to occur while we’re watching our stories. Turmoil in the Middle East update, my ass! I want to know who murdered Luke Spencer and where that damn Aztec treasure is buried!

We’ve heard terms like “NAFTA” but we just can’t explain it in depth. We’ll say something like, “Oh, that Mexican thing? I’m tired of talking about it.” Sometimes Communications majors are painted into a corner and forced to give opinions on subjects that haven’t been on the cover of People – like thermodynamics. That’s when we usually get that look – like a deer in headlights – with our eyes and mouths opened wide, and the only possible thing we can say is “duh.”

It’s far better for us to intrude on conversations already in progress: Overhear the topic, then get in and get out. If a group of highbrows is discussing Rush Limbaugh, quickly step in and say something clever like, “Rush? Why, he’s Socrates gone mad!” While the stunned partygoers ponder who you are, what that strange comment meant, and the significance of your stunning hair, you can just slip on over to the open bar, you sly devil. They’ll most certainly think you said something profound, and no one will want to embarrass themselves by admitting their ignorance. “But hold those Nobel Prizes,” you’ll ultimately chuckle to yourself.

So you see, Communications can be a fun and rewarding career choice for you, and when people say Communications majors have not contributed to society, you can simply point to successful Com-inspired infomercials like Rich Dad/Poor Dad, The Psychic Friends Network, The Millionaire Next Door, anything with Suze Orman in it, and that guy dressed in the Riddler suit whose book teaches you how to dodge the IRS tax man.

Communications majors: We’re laughing all the way to the bank!

“Petition to Take the Course: Advanced Movement and Combat”

An Essay By Kevin Scott Cody (aka Kvng Korng)

I woke up this morning in a bathtub filled to my nipples. It was filled with my tears. Why am I sad? Am I sad? Sad because unfulfilled. While doing my class search for the upcoming quarter I sucked on my middle finger and hoped for the best, and as I scrolled and scrolled I felt my body begin to sag with the weight of opaque hate. Then god showed his golden placid face to me, he bared his teeth in a sagacious smile, sweltering heat slapped me as I slipped into severe celebration. I read the words once, twice, thrice, and I read them again, turned my laptop upside down, turned my laptop sideways, zoomed in, turned my brightness up, turned my brightness down, zoomed out, went to the bathroom, had a shit and a cry, came back, put on my glasses, read it again and I was not dreaming I was living my dreams when I saw that there is a class called Advanced Movement and Combat. Heart raced, texted mom. I clicked link and dream came to end. The class is only for theater majors. Eat her mage oars, it echoed in my liquid skull, diaphanous with the surreal cocktail of emotions. Fuck me. Fuck you. Fuck UCLA.

Anger raced up and down my spine like Sonic the Hedgehog, and as he collected more golden rings, I collected more reasons to murder. I sat alone but was soon joined by my childhood idols: Scotty 2 Hotty, Christian, Golddust, and Triple H, all of them looking at me with top-down disdain, and my heretic heartbeat thumped, thumped.

“It’s all about the game,” said Triple H, and Golddust’s face erupted with a cloud of none other than gold dust into my eyes now engorged by an inferno of pain that was a red tornado that swept me up in its voracious winds tearing holes in my skin screaming at 120 decibels and dangling my body like a ragdoll in its dumb fury and as I gained my composure I looked up and across the void from me I saw Eddie and Chavo Guerrero in their lowrider, nodding their heads, doing their thing, and the red scream of the tornado was drowned out by their entrancing chant: LIE CHEAT AND STEAL, LIE CHEAT AND STEAL. Reality snapped back in.

“Are you a sleepwalker,” said Hussein, my roommate, who had just walked through the door, the room now empty besides him and I, I standing there naked and drenched in sweat on my coffee table holding my laptop high above my head.

“I just woke up,” I said. And I did, I had. I am awake. I am writing this essay.

I am writing this essay to petition to get into the course Advanced Movement and Combat. As I have alluded to, I love the WWE, and the way that they move, the way that they, you know, get down — it’s the tightest shit. I am paying multiple thousands of dollars to go to this godforsaken shithole of a university, and yet, what? I can’t sign up for a class I actually want to take? fuck that, fuck that. I need to take this class! I need it! And my roommate does, too, because I will murder him if I do not get into this class.

If I am not allowed to take Advanced Movement and Combat for theater majors, I will drown my roommate in boiling piss and I will leave his body outside the door of Advanced Movement and Combat as a symbol of my honor, gratitude, and respect for myself because I will not put up with this fascist segmenting bullshit that you call Majors of Study. I pay my fucking cash to you dicks, not so that I can be told NO, but so I can be told TO DO WHATEVER THE FUCK I WANT. So put me in the class, that’s all I ask, and it ain’t too hard for you pussies. I’m sure that you click a button or send an email or something easy as fuck, so do that, let me know, and I’ll see you on the first day of class Mr. LaDalton, or else I’m gonna be sayin’, “Can you smmmeeeEEEEEEEEELLLLLLLLLLLLL……!!!!” a la Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson while I hold my roommates head in a boiling pot of liquid human waste. Make the right decision.