Reply to Is Communications a liberal arts major or a vocational major?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Look at the Common Data Sets for each University, for Bachelor's Degrees awarded.

For Michigan, in the 2022-23 data set, Communications was in the 200s, History in the 90s, and all Area/Ethnic Studies in the 60s.

I am a parent with a Michigan grad degree.  My son is starting LSA this year.

I mentioned favoring dual majors but here I would propose a History Major with Communications Minor, especially if the student can write credibly about their specific interest in History and connect it to Michigan courses.

It's unlikely that top athletes will be interacting with your child's application.  It makes sense to me that future NFL types would be interested in issues related to Communication.  They are probably more interested in sports journalism, broadcast journalism. P.R., media virality, etc.  Staying away from sports topics is probably sufficient.

Regarding other schools, just compare degrees awarded to the total size of the class.

How big should a major be to be big?  Hard to say, depends on the size of the university. 200 or 300 grads a year is a good size department.  50 or fewer is small at a big school.  The Ford Public Policy at Michigan is about 80 per year and that is a selective degree that accepts about 50% of internal applicants.

My husband was in a small but healthy liberal arts major at a big school.  He knew almost all the other majors.  It gives a big school a much smaller feel, if that is desired.

Look into the Michigan Honors College and Residential College options.

Best of luck!

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DP:
This is soo helpful. Are the numbers in the CDS data the number of graduates that year or the number of kids who were accepted and matriculated w/that major that year?

And would you pick history because of the numbers? What if sociology or anthropology or economics were similar numbers?

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PP above.  I am an MBA who loves liberal arts subjects.  I would choose History if I loved history and could effectively communicate my special area of interest.  It is appealing that the grad numbers are half of the Communications numbers.  That said, from what I read, there are people from this board whose kids have gotten in as LSA Undecided.  The ultra-specialized "studies" degrees don't appeal to me personally because I never wanted to hyperfocus on a topic.  And I do worry they could be career limiting for a generalist.

The CDS numbers are for Bachelor's grads.  Numbers for matriculants would be a lot fuzzier since people change majors.  In general, if there are capped or direct admit majors, you can find some kind of stats somehow.  But maybe not cleanly from the CDS.

Regarding choice of other majors, that's so personal.  I considered Psychology but ended up in Economics because I decided against pursuing an academic career and expected to go into business.  History is a major that emphasizes context, taking the long view, and writing.  All of those are a great counterbalance to more overt "vocational" skills.  While I think anthropology and sociology are interesting topics, I feel they are slightly less practical majors.  But that's my taste.  I think few kids know what college level anthropology might be like, so I question if they know enough to write essays about their interest in it.  The sociology majors I remember went into social work and human services careers.  That is not my area, so can't comment on pros and cons.  Economics is usually popular (it is the business/vocational major at schools that don't have a true major).  It will be a more common choice, so probably will not help an app to stand out.  At Michigan, the undergrad business major would be harder to get into (seats are limited and direct admit is ramping up this year).

At some point, the gamesmanship should end.  I wouldn't recommend a kid write essays about a major they have no intent to pursue. It sounds like OP's kid has about 3-4 areas of interest.  I view History as very writing-focused.  And OP's kid has a "studies" interest to wrap in.  Seems legit enough to apply as a History major or History/Communications (major or minor).

With enough AP credits, a dual major might well be possible and reduce the need to choose between.

Tangent: somehow I don't see going to Stanford for Communications, even though it's possible. I would recommend applying to schools that are better known for Journalism, etc.[/quote]

I posted earlier.

If you have journalistic extracurriculars, is that not good enough “evidence” for a communications major at any of the schools mentioned (incl Stanford)? Doesn’t that make sense if combined with history or American studies as a major?

Also, isn’t sociology the study of society, and would touch on things such as race, identity, gender and sexuality, inequality, immigration, social class, & institutions.
Wouldn’t that be a good match with communications or interdisciplinary American studies?[/quote]

PP.  I feel that Communications can be paired with many majors.  The applicant should decide which of their interests to showcase. I do follow the logic shared above. Just make sure that the plan can be effectively and convincingly described.

Sociology/Communications sounds like a fit for non-profit/advocacy/political communications jobs.   Maybe the applicant should make a list of potential dream jobs and work back from that.

I looked at Stanford's latest CDS.  It has percentages instead of BA counts.  With a class size of about 2,000, there were only 0.8% graduating in Communications and 2% in Ethnic/Gender Studies. Not sure how to evaluate this considering that there is also a large 15% categorized under "Interdisciplinary Studies".  You'd have to know specifics about Stanford to know what classes those students are pursuing.

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