I can confess that for most of my college experience my attitude was one of “take the class, finish the class, move on.” Even though I believe I had enough perspective on my education to know that each class was building upon the last, working towards a more comprehensive picture of the areas of focus I was looking at, in practice my attitude was that of taking courses to check boxes to get the degree to get out.
I’d like to think that I got better about this as time wore on – and I really think that I did, but I still wish that I could go back and engage a bit better with some of my earlier classes. Particularly now, as I have completed my M.A. (I graduate next Saturday) and am looking forward to several more years of education, I recognize the importance of classes building on one another to prepare you for the next step.
This is why I decided to sit down, having now completed the work for this degree, to think back on just what it is that I learned here. I’ve been told by some that an academic M.A. (as opposed to a professionally focused one) is less about the subject matter of each course, per se, and more about providing you with the necessary background information and more importantly the skills necessary to complete Ph.D. work. So in addition to looking at each class below for what they taught me about specific areas of communication, I’ve tried to think through just what competency each class was trying to build in me to prepare me to go forward.
This post covers the first year of my time in Baylor’s M.A. in Communication program, both fall and spring semesters, and a follow-up will cover the second year.
CSS 5310 – Modern Communication Theory
I had taken a communication theory course at Geneva that was among the most influential classes I ever took. That class introduced me to a number of different specific theories in the discipline, as well as helped me to explore firsthand the implication of one of those theories. This graduate class was similarly modeled in terms of introducing different major theory areas in the discipline, but also emphasized the philosophical backdrops that go into the creation and explication of theories. Here we covered new ground, for me anyways, in ontology, epistemology, and axiology, and were tasked with the creation of our own theories. I don’t think that mine was very good at the end of the semester, but I valued the push towards expanding outwards away from just what we were reading or being told and into more original territory. Of course first excursions into the unknown are going to be a little shaky, so it’s no wonder my theory wasn’t that great, but the fundamental information presented in this class will always be of value.
One of the biggest takeaways in this class related to the weekly assignment of bringing in an article about the week’s topic that connected back to my specific interests in the discipline. These “scholarly exchanges” could get a little tedious sometimes, and often no one was interested in hearing what anyone else’s was, but the exercise was critical in illustrating for each of us that no matter how much we thought we knew about our specific areas of interest there was always going to be more out there for us to learn. To some extent I think I came into the classroom ready to learn but still conceiving of myself as already something of an expert in my chosen focus areas. This exercise proved to everyone, and me especially, that this was not the case. Instead of being discouraging, though, this was eye-opening, showing me not only how much there was out there to learn, but also showing me some of the areas where I could expand my own research and make contributions to the discipline.
CSS 5312 – Seminar in Argumentation
Almost certainly the class I was least prepared for coming into graduate school, this proved to be one of the most challengingly fun classes of the first year. We covered a whole lot of ground in theories of what constitute arguments and how people argue, and I’m not entirely sure that I got even about half of what we read or talked about, but I enjoyed having to face up to a whole lot that I didn’t know or understand. I also somewhat flaunted this class’s main assignment of writing a short research paper for submission to one particular conference, but that turned out alright since everyone else did, too.
The main thing I got out of this class, I think, was lessons in being in environments where it was clear I had no idea of what was going on, or what we were reading or talking about. It helped me to sit back and not care about being smart or even remotely competent, and to enjoy learning from other people. This was not always easy, but was certainly rewarding in the end.
FDM 5356 – Seminar in Media Aesthetics and Criticism
In spite being the class most in my wheelhouse during the first semester of graduate work, this was maybe the one that challenged my motivation the most. The class centered around understanding and applying the narrative theory/approach of “neoformalism” to different films, but after the first few weeks what it really seemed like to me was that we were just spending a few hours every week talking about a movie with no particular aim to the discussion. I was wrong, of course, and a talk with the professor helped clarify the class’s intent and what it was that I was to be getting out of it.
As such, there were really two big lessons that I learned from this class, one interpersonal, the other related to the subject. First, I learned that people were willing to help me when I was struggling with a subject, that they wanted me to succeed and were happy to point the way to that success. Second, I learned a lot about reading a film in ways that gave deference to the film itself. The main thrust of neoformalistic thinking is to approach the film basically on its own terms, to evaluate its formal characteristics in order to understand how the film is organizing and presenting its narrative and form, and how those things comment on the film and its narrative. I was always of the Roger Ebert “consider each movie on its own terms” persuasion, but this theoretical paradigm helped put some heftier vocabulary behind it, and led to some very fun discussions and later experiences watching movies. Of all the different film theories that I’ve learned about over the last two years, this one remains a favorite for the way that it encourages attentiveness to the film itself, not always to other sources or factors.
CSS 5352 – Methods of Rhetorical Criticism
Though this class was not required for me because of the track that I came into this program on, I knew that I wanted to take it not only for the challenge that it presented but for the chance to learn with Dr. Marty Medhurst, one of the preeminent rhetorical scholars in the field today. We read a lot in this class, and wrote a decent amount, and while I never quite felt that the class aligned with what my expectations had been or what the outcomes were maybe intended to be, I enjoyed what we did there each week.
One thing I learned a lot about was publishing and writing for publication. Dr. Medhurst’s long history in academic publishing and journal editing was a true font of information for those of us aiming to work towards publication, and his anecdotes about the ins and outs of the publishing world were generally very fascinating to listen to. Add onto this the clear directions he gave on how to write, how to approach texts, and how to think through the process of preparing to publish, and there really was a lot that this class made you consider, reconsider, and try to apply.
In addition to practical publishing knowledge, I felt that I learned a lot about the general work of rhetorical scholarship, without necessarily learning a lot about rhetoric itself. I gained a greater appreciation for the creativity inherent in rhetorical scholarship, and some about the various ways that texts can be approached and how they open themselves up to interpretation and analysis. Once again, I felt a bit like I was in over my head in this class and so I’m not sure that I got absolutely everything that I could out of it, but I liked what I got, and it’s certainly been an influence on my work since.
CSS 5V35 – Independent Study, Visual Rhetoric
Technically this was my first exercise in syllabus design as I added to/revised a syllabus that a professor provided to me, and so one of my first lessons from this was just how much of a glutton for punishment I am – I added probably way too much to the syllabus for what the class was designed to be. The chief value of this class was that it in some ways built on some articles that I had read for my class in argumentation about visual arguments, and so the different approaches to analyzing visual content that the reading in this class provided were invaluable for learning different ways to literally look at and read the world.
Because this was an independent study, I think the biggest lessons I learned through this class were about time management, as well as the freedom that can come with graduate academic work. While all of my classes at Baylor let me write papers about basically whatever I wanted to, the paper I wrote for this class felt like the most organic one to me, and it seemed like the class readings were such that I was able to sort of focus my learning from them onto the topics that I was interested in looking at. The enjoyment I got from that process really spurred me on to applying those ideas to other classes going forward, which has proved incredibly fun and helpful.
FDM 5336 – Media Psychology
In many ways this focused a lot like the class on communication theory in that it introduced topics and discussions relating to major areas of scholarship and debate concerning the influence and role of media on individuals and societies. The topics we covered here were helpful in debunking the notion that media is entirely innocent, and really pointed to the deeper relationships and connections that exist between our bodies, our entertainment, and even our values.
The greatest lessons this class taught me were really about the application of knowledge. Not that none of my other classes had directly applicable lessons to learn, but because the focus of this class was directly on entertainment and media–things with which I engage on a near daily basis–the weekly topics and vocabulary were often directly applicable and useful. These things definitely helped to push me to think more and work to more comprehensively understand and define my use and engagement with media content.
Zachary Sheldon 