Confirmation

A License To Print Money!
Since before you were born, the National Association of Colleges and Employers has asked hiring managers what they look for in the people they hire, and the #1 answer year after year is communication skills. In COMM 212: Storytelling and Public Speaking, you’ll get on your feet and get your feet wet, talking about yourself, giving your testimony, telling stories about your family, mastering Powerpoint, and even learning a thing or two about research and persuasion.

You can have the whole world in your hands!
You’ve flashcarded all the vocabulary and sweated out the grammar, so now you know a foreign language and are ready to study or work abroad. But what if you make a mistake? What if you offend somebody? What if you think you’re waving hello, but actually you’re calling someone’s mother an aardvark snuggler? After COMM 220: Intercultural Communication, you’ll be equipped with the tools to analyze different cultures, avoid pitfalls, make friends, win respect, and navigate the globe with nothing to fear.

Road trip!
Have you always wanted to be better at reading expressively, thinking on your feet, or talking in front of people? Want to improve in all those areas without having to stress over the grade? How does taking out of town trips on the university’s dime, making smart friends from other colleges, and enjoy bonding time with your fellow Beacons sound? COMM 322: Forensics earns you upper division credit for being a Speakin’ Beacon, a member of the NCU speech and debate team. You commit to a half-hour team meeting each week, plus a half-hour one-on-one practice session with Doyle, and then you compete in the novice division at no more than two tournaments. Have fun, get smarter, get out of town!

Never be manipulated again!
From politicians to businesses to your own family members, everyone you communicate with has an agenda, and they all try in their own ways to manipulate you. In COMM 340: Rhetorical Criticism and Argumentation, we study the art of persuasion and the framing of good reasons. Learn to spot both the blatant and the subtle attempts to wear down your resistance and sway you into doing someone else’s bidding. You’ll swell up with pride the first time you say, “No sir, these are the droids I’m looking for!”

Decode the secret messages all around you!
You, and everyone else on earth, transmit a raging flood of information at every moment, even when you think you’re being silent and unremarkable. Plenty of people promise you that they can teach you how to read “body language,” but most of their claims are ridiculous hogwash. In COMM 430: Nonverbal Communication, we focus on reliable, sound research into messages of appearance, posture, voice, facial expression, gesture, and much, much more, and we separate the truth from the nonsense that people slap together just to make a buck.

(This is the other thing I did for the latest issue of the Mishpat. They asked for classified ads for all the Spring classes, to give students an idea what they were about.)