Everyone should take at least one communication course

Communication skills are your most vital asset courses will teach you how to do just that. ically, the athlete or actor is throwing their hands up in the air — taking up space — in celebration of their accomplishment.

The first communication course I ever took was a public speaking class in high school. At the time, I was a junior and I wanted to take an “easy” course that would boost my GPA for college applications.

Before I knew it, my time was up. The class applauded. I sat back down, my nerves finally settling. I couldn’t have told you what I said or how I looked. I was so nervous that I had blacked out.

You think your life is hard? Psh. Try being a communication major.

I work myself to the bone.

My classes start at the break of dawn — 10 a.m. I have to do a discussion board and a 10-question multiple choice quiz every week. I just can’t catch a break!

In all seriousness, communication majors don’t exactly have a reputation for putting our noses to the grindstone. While what we do isn’t as difficult as mechanical engineering, we still put time into our coursework and learn some incredibly valuable life lessons.

For instance, how you present yourself — verbally and nonverbally — could be the deciding factor during a job interview. Your eye movements, your facial expressions, your posture, your tone of voice and especially your attitude are all key components to being successful in life.

Employers want confident, well-rounded individuals who present themselves in a professional manner; communication

My ignorant 16-year-old self was fully confident that public speaking would be a cakewalk. “How difficult could it possibly be? There’s barely 15 kids taking this class and all I have to do is speak in front of them for a few minutes? Bet.”

The teacher, Mrs. Caiet, won that bet. For our first assignment, we were asked to get up in front of the class and talk about something that interests us for two minutes.

The catch to this assignment was that Mrs. Caiet recorded our speeches in order to evaluate our posture and presence.

I was a fairly confident person at that age, so I volunteered to go first. But when I got up to speak in front of the class, I started to shake uncontrollably.

I started to speak, but my voice was drowned out by the deafening sound of my restless nerves. Blood rushed to my head and my ears. I couldn’t focus on the words spilling out of my mouth.

All I could think of was where to awkwardly place my clammy hands and how to stand up straight without looking like a total dork.

Mrs. Caiet emailed me the video of my speech later that day. As I watched it, all I could think was “Dude really?”

I was leaning on one leg like a Vogue model, but my hands were in my pockets at the same time. My eyes were darting across the room as if I was tracking down a fruit fly. My cheeks were bright red.

To say that was a humbling experience would be an understatement. But what started as an embarrassing moment blossomed into one of the greatest learning experiences of my life.

Not only does your body language and facial expressions affect how others perceive you, it also affects how you see yourself.

How do you sit? You might sit cross legged or with your legs slightly tucked under your chair. But, if you sit with your legs open and feet flat on the floor, you will seem and feel more confident. Taking up space, with consideration for those around you, is a small but very effective way to increase your self confidence.

When you see an actor win an Oscar or an athlete win an Olympic gold medal, pay attention to their immediate reaction. Typ-

After my speech, I started making a conscious effort to sit with my legs unfolded and my feet more outward. Four years later, I sit that way unconsciously. After taking up a little more space in a mundane human task, my confidence has skyrocketed.

My public speaking class opened my eyes to a new world of communication.

Once I got to UB, I became a communication major.

Now, as a junior in college, I’ve learned much more than how to sit correctly.

I’ve learned about the science of communication, how it affects people and why people communicate the way they do.

But even that small lesson in high school helped me become a more confident person. This confidence, this superpower, will bring me far in life — and literally anyone can learn how to harness it.

I know it’s not the most respected major, and it doesn’t necessarily have to be. But it is important to realize that the communication skills you can learn in the classroom will be relevant for the rest of your life.

If you want to improve your general demeanor, you should take at least one communication course — no matter what field of study you’re in.

Email: dylan.greco@ubspectrum.com

A list of the Distinguished Speaker Series entries UB wishes it could redo

Bill Cosby, Kevin Spacey and Donald Trump have all headlined the series sey native was unemployed and, in case you live under a rock, embroiled in allegations that he had sexually assaulted several young boys over the course of decades. any politicians or government officials on this list.

Content warning: This article mentions sexual assault.

Whoever books guests for the Distinguished Speaker Series should give themselves a pat on the back, because this year’s was one for the books.

But not every entry in the decades-old speaking series is memorable for the right reasons. The speaking circuit attracts more than its fair share of grifters, liars and abusers, and UB’s Distinguished Speaker Series is no exception. Today’s heroes are sometimes tomorrow’s villains.

So to celebrate the closing of a Distinguished Speaker Series that will (hopefully) age like a bottle of fine Chardonnay, let’s take a look back at just a few of the speeches that have aged like milk.

Kevin Spacey (2016):

Kevin Spacey was at the height of his fame when he addressed a packed Alumni Arena in 2016. He’d just starred as the machiavellian politician Frank Underwood in the fourth season of the hit Netflix show “House of Cards” and been nominated for two Emmys the year prior.

A mere 18 months later, the New Jer-

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But Spacey’s sliminess doesn’t end there. The actor offered his first accuser an insincere if-I-did-it-style apology before coming out as gay in the same statement. I can only assume that was a cynical attempt to distract from the allegations, all while giving free ammunition to homophobic pundits who want to portray gay men as pedophiles.

But despite his complete unwillingness to take accountability, Spacey did fess up to one misdeed in his speech: As a struggling actor, Spacey told the audience that he had stolen a ticket to a film lecture from a sleeping woman.

“I know it was wrong,” Spacey said, according to UBNow. If only he’d repeated that line instead of denying the allegations against him in disturbing YouTube videos where he plays Frank Underwood.

Bill Cosby (2003):

Cosby seems to have spent much of his speech portraying himself as a committed husband and fun uncle, according to the UB Reporter. But of course, he had to slip in this “joke” about middle-aged parties: “We don’t have to worry about someone slipping ecstasy into our drinks — they might try to slip Viagra in there instead.”

The quip is as disgusting as his use of “we” is inappropriate.

Donald Trump (2004):

I tried to stay away from putting

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Besides, what really makes Trump’s speech memorable for all the wrong reasons isn’t his presidency, not really anyway. It’s the advice (or, as the UB Reporter puts it, “pearls of wisdom”) he offers to the presumably bright-eyed UB students in attendance: “Surround yourself with the best people and sort of trust them — not totally, but watch them,” the business mogul (and then-registered Democrat) said in his 40-minute speech. “If someone screws you, you screw them back.” “Be paranoid.” “The professors will be upset with this… [but] get even.”

And my personal favorite? “Always get a prenup. Had I not had a prenup, I would not be here!” (That being said, his use of the word “loser” to describe a building is a close second.)

Looking back on it from 2023, the speech is a forward and all-too-honest portrait of the man who would go on to be the 45th president of the U.S. Yes, he was always like this.

Steve Wozniak (2015):

For those of you who aren’t engineering majors, Wozniak co-founded Apple and helped lead the company until 1985. He’s a giant in computer science.

But since his 2015 speech, he’s added some less savory items to his resume. He founded his own private university, WozU, in 2017. An Arizona state oversight board had to review a formal complaint against the “institution,” according to azcentral. com, and one student told CBS that the school was effectively a “a $13,000 ebook.” Oh, and he has own cryptocurrency called WOZX.

Steven Levitt (2007):

Economist Levitt, alongside journalist Stephen Dubner, took the world by storm in the 2000s with their book, “Freakonomics,” which aims to expose the unexpected and unintuitive causes of everyday phenomena using economics.

And while perhaps the least problematic person on this list, Levitt has a lot to answer for intellectually.

Take his claim that the legalization of abortion in the ‘70s led to falling crime rates in the ‘90s because unwanted children commit more crimes. It’s as fantastical as it is uncomfortable.

It’s also wrong. According to The Wall Street Journal, other economists found serious coding errors in their data and criticized the pair for counting arrests on a total (and not per-capita) basis. When accounting for those, the effect disappears.

But even if that wasn’t the case, saying that abortion was the main driver of this trend is still an irresponsible oversimplification of sociology. A lot of things changed between the ‘70s and ‘90s. And it’s not just one theory. Levitt and Dubner have been objectively wrong about a long list of topics.

I guess we should’ve taken Levitt’s opening line seriously: “I’m not a real economist.”

Email: grant.ashley@ubspectrum.com

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