While I was doing my undergraduate studies way back when, I took a class on Chinese History with this professor who told us the story of how he was studying to become an engineer when one day he tripped over (literally almost fell flat on the floor) Confucius' "Analects" in the library one evening while looking for an engineering book for his assignment. He picked up the book, opened it up out of curiosity....and that marked the beginning of a 40+years love affair with Chinese culture and history.
My love affair with Communication started out in a similar way. I entered USC as an International Relations major, thinking that I wanna learn about international stuff (I was 18, what can I say?:)). This was quite a departure from the usual Accounting/Business/Engineering track that most of my relatives took on when they did their studies in the U.S. I had an appointment with my adviser, and got lost on the way to the IR building. I entered the Comm Dept building instead. While trying to figure out how to get myself to the PoliSci building, I noticed a couple of flyers advertising this basic Interpersonal Comm. class that was being offered. I took a look at the class description and though that it sounded interesting (oooo...we'll be learning about romantic relationships and stuff...again, I was 18:)). I took the class as part of my liberal arts /general education requirement, and the rest was history.
In terms of the founding fathers/mothers of Comm. for me, I'd like to say that I'd attribute it to the social-constructionists. I always had the feeling that there's more to the process of communicating than what's being said and done...on a fundamental level, being exposed to Levi Strauss' dyads/dichotomy of the way we organize our world views (I've spent most of my academic informative years in the U.S., so I can't help but think in that dyadic way) changed how I think about both my own thoughts, and how people arrange theirs.
What I love most about the field is its vastness and ability to embrace all kinds of topics from many academic traditions which could be applied to all sorts of texts. Yes, I sometimes I feel a bit lost in defining what I'm studying in a sense that nothing is communication since everything can be appropriated into the field(have you guys tried explaining what you're studying to your parents and failed miserably?:) My parents still think I'm doing Marketing and PR:)) ...but this freedom to roam through different topics is worth the confusion...right guys?
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4 comments:
hey sunny, when people ask my parents what I study, they say "oh, she's a feminist. so, something along those lines..." :)i think they have a nice way of putting it, though. couldn't have said it better myself. :)
Thanks for posting Sunny! I really enjoy learning both about how you came to do a doctoral program in comm, as well as how your work is characterized by members of your family.
For my part, my father thought until recently that my field of study was education, and not communication.
I have similar experiences with explaining what I do. My father in law must have asked at least 15 times. Usually all explanations end up with something like "it's like socilogy, but with emphasis on communication." It's funny to think of communication studies as originating in Europe and with European thinkers(as we read in textbooks), because from my experience no one in Europe gets communication studies as a social science... And when I studied PR in Bulgaria, we did talk about Lazarsfeld, but he was "American" - all in all, we got much of the same story with comm. originating in public opinion research, only the MODERN origins of that story were presented to us as "American" rather than "European" ... perhaps the grass IS always greener on the other side...
I should clarify the above is based on my very limited academic and conversational experiences in parts of Eastern Europe and in Germany.
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