Professor Brian Bohr has insights on the role communication studies can have in your education.
Q: What helped you in college the most to stay on track?
A: “I think the biggest thing that I did was I met with my professors during their office hours. I would meet with them regularly to ask questions ,and to get to know them. I would bring in drafts of assignments, or ask different questions. So I think really getting to know my professors and visiting them during office hours was one of the best things that I did and could ever do as a student.”
Q: How do you use communication studies everyday in your job? Could you give me an example?
A: In communication studies we look at the verbal and nonverbal messages that we send and receive all day, every day. So we communicate at all points of our day, whether we’re communicating with ourselves, or it’s that running monologue going on inside or you’re talking to yourself- that’s intrapersonal communication. When we talk with other people, friends, family, coworkers, talking with my students, that’s interpersonal communication. I use communication all day because I’m here on campus talking with students. What I try and get them to do to do through Communication Studies is recognize that their voices matter. Recognize that who they are as people as speakers as agents of change is something that’s really impactful in our world and in our society. I think it’s very easy to look from a surface level at Communication Studies. How do you use it every day? because I talk with people all the time but I think even more than that we use our voices to create change to create social change to create change in the world, that we hope to see and that’s what I try and do in my job is to empower students to find and use their voices. So that’s certainly why I use communication studies everyday thinking about it.”
Q: When did you learn that communication studies would be your passion?
A: “So I said I went to school and studied theater – for a long time I was a performer, I performed musical theater shows all throughout and there was a moment when I just realized that I did enjoy the work but I didn’t love the lifestyle. So I kind of knew that I knew that wasn’t going to be my forever career. So, I moved back to this area and I was still performing in the theater in the evening. Then I started coaching a high school speech and debate team and that’s when I was like- I need to do that, how do I do that forever how do I help students craft speeches, craft public addresses and how can I help student find their voices and empower them. That was a moment when I was still performing at night but really all of my attention and focus was on my students and that was what really spring boarded me into that career.”
Q: What Question do you get asked most by students in your classes?
A: “I think there’s two. The first one is how do I get rid of my speech anxiety? So I get that question a lot because I teach our CMS 101 our fundamentals of speech class and people often walk into that class feeling very apprehensive and anxious so they often ask how do I get rid of my speech anxiety and to that I say you’re not going to get rid of it so actually it’s okay, it’s about managing your speech anxiety and working through it. So that’s what we spend a lot of time doing in our class, sort of not get rid of but manage your own anxieties about public speaking. The second question I get asked alot is, What can I use communication studies for in the future..What would a Communication Major get me? And to that I say anything you want I think communication is such an easy discipline to lock in to anywhere that you go in our world where everything is sort of getting automized and where for a lack of a better word what the robots are taking over what the robots can’t do is complex human interaction and the thing we are really good at doing and the thing we know how to is complex human interaction which is also communication. “
