Communication Studies

I cannot overstate the impact of HTC on my academic and professional career. My degree gave me so many skills that continue to serve me: most especially my writing, but also my ability to build and articulate an argument, defend my ideas, and distill difficult subject matter.  

The one-on-one tutorials with the incredible faculty in the School of Communication Studies both challenged and supported me in this growth, and many of these professors have remained mentors to this day. I was able to study subjects that I would not have found in any general education class, and enjoyed the way that intellectual curiosity and exploration were enthusiastically encouraged by my professors. 

My HTC degree opened many doors for me, including the skills that I now use daily in my policy work on Capitol Hill. I still believe that choosing HTC was one of the best decisions I have made to this point, and I cannot recommend the program enough to prospective students who are seeking a rigorous, exciting, intellectually stimulating education with lasting impact.

HTC was an integral part of my OHIO experience. It allowed me to jump straight into the deep end of my COMS education. I worked one-on-one with professors from across the school while also learning from them in more traditional classroom settings. I could refine my skills and research interests one-on-one while completing the foundational coursework of a COMS education. The professor-student relationships I formed along the way also led to extracurricular opportunities, like a humanities research apprenticeship and a congressional internship. It's an invaluable small-college experience within the larger OHIO campus and the Athens community.

Get everything you can out of your classwork. Get out into the field when you can and see it in action. Stand up for your values, and look for connections with others along the way. 

The topics that interest you are not silly! If something intrigues you and makes you light up while talking about it, bring it into your tutorials and relate it back to your COMS classes. It does not matter if you cannot figure out how to make certain themes sound academically rigorous or cohesive when you first start examining them. Thanks to the flexibility of HTC and the broad applicability of COMS, I was able to explore topics from some of my favorite COMS and non-COMS classes and slowly bring them together in my thesis project. Geography of Latin America, History and Culture of Latin America, Intro to Social Work, Communication in Nonprofit Organizing, and Storytelling and Social Change morphed into a more specific interest in communication witnessed through storytelling in migration. Now I get to work at a migrant shelter in Mexico, treasuring the stories and storytellers I receive each day.

My communication degree and specialization in health and human services launched my professional career where I have worked in human resources, fundraising and development, public relations and marketing, health education, research and evaluation, public information management, and more. The value of the individual tutorial learning sessions equipped me for leadership and the ability to advocate for myself and others. Today's employers are looking for professionals who have the knowledge, self-discipline, and initiative to propel work projects forward, and the OU HTC program fosters these skills for success. I am thankful for my experiences as an Interpersonal Communication major in the OU HTC program, and I highly recommend this experience to others.

I used my HTC COMS degree to study Political Communications in depth. While I was at OHIO, I took University Professor classes on things like "Persuasion," used the ability to avoid prerequisites to take only "Political Sociology" and "Political Psychology," and studied communications like the way marriage was addressed in welfare policy (my thesis topic). Since OHIO, I've split my career -- half has been political work, including electoral campaigns and serving as communications director for a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, the U.S. House Committee on Education and Labor, and a member of the U.S. Senate in leadership. The other half of my work has been in communications contracting, normally for the federal government, and often around public health. For example, I've helped a very prominent public health director manage messaging around COVID-19 and am currently creating a guide to inclusive language for a leading group making recommendations around preventive care.

OHIO's HTC program in Communication Studies is where I learned to think deeply about words and messaging, about how communication shapes the world around us and our response to it. It taught me the power of a good story in changing people's behavior, and opened my eyes to how others are trying to shape my own reactions. I have used what I learned at OHIO across my career - whether I was helping a prominent senator explain a delicate political position, crafting messages to help people stay safe during the pandemic, or teaching leading clinicians how to explain their latest health guidelines to the media, I have leaned on and grown from the work I did in HTC. 

My experience gained through HTC in the School of Communication Studies has been incredibly valuable to my growth and career. Communication studies touches the theoretical underpinnings of our lives and how we navigate the world. I wanted to study communications and find a way to turn it into a career. HTC let me do that. First, I was able to customize my classes and tutorials to allow me to dive into both organizational communication and human resources in partnership with professors from the business college. This let me pair the theoretical studies with practical application in a way that aligned with my interests and career goals. Also, the rigor of the thesis writing process taught me how to dive into an ambiguous problem with a lot of autonomy. While that skill is particularly important in my job that deals with messy people problems, being able to think through ambiguity is valuable for any career. 

The skills I gained during my HTC studies have proven to be quite beneficial throughout my career. Beyond learning to be a more effective communicator generally, I benefited from being able to focus on a particular area of personal interest -- legal communications -- for my senior thesis. This project helped prepare me to succeed in law school, and ultimately served as the basis for my first book after entering academia (Baseball on Trial: The Origin of Baseball's Antitrust Exemption).

The four years I spent pursuing Communication Studies in the Honors Tutorial College were foundational in my academic, professional, and personal development. Not only were my (sometimes incredibly niche!) interests fostered by the wonderful team of professors and advisors, but by the other COMS students and entire HTC community. Rest assured, you will be surrounded by peers who think it’s cool to nerd out about the theoretical underpinnings of Goffman’s ideas of ‘self’ as performance—and will gladly listen to you ramble about it at 2 a.m. in the Alden Library stacks. It may sound intimidating at first, but the opportunity to conduct one-on-one research projects with a different professor each semester via tutorials and write a thesis on anything you want was life changing for me. In addition to the unique academic rigor, HTC connected me with roommates, best friends, and even my partner who I met in a Transmedia Star Wars class taught by our Dean. I will be forever grateful for my time as a student in the HTC COMS program!

HTC prepared me for law school with extensive coursework focusing on critical thinking and analysis.  As a former law professor, I used to tell incoming students the best way to prepare for law school is to read as much as possible.  For OU students who want to go to law school, the best way you can prepare is to study in HTC.

I learned so much from each tutorial, beginning with my first day of classes when Dr. Lynn Harter introduced me to the breadth of research focuses within communication studies. I loved how easy and fun it became to observe, discuss, research and write about the interpersonal and organizational communication dynamics I observed in student organizations, residence halls, offices, and in the university as a system. Drs. Devika Chawla and Christina Beck advised my autoethnographic honors thesis about how communicative experiences shape understandings of identity. That journey provided me with a strong foundation for completing a Master of Arts in human development through Ohio University’s Individual Interdisciplinary Program (IIP). Athens, the Honors Tutorial College, and Ohio University have provided me with such consistent yet dynamic intellectual, professional, academic, and social support that I’m proud to say I remained to deepen my community leadership engagement and to earn an interdisciplinary Ph.D. in positive psychology and decision-making. I drew from what I learned about quantitative and qualitative research methods across all three degrees to write my dissertation about using the quantitative method of multi-attribute utility modeling to evaluate Pride Center initiatives designed through the qualitative process of critical appreciative inquiry. I harness the power and practice of communication, human development, and decision-making theory on a daily basis and I live an incredibly satisfying life as a result.

As a curious first-year student, I wanted to explore the intersection of communication with gender studies, politics, religion, social media, and culture. The tutorial experience allowed me to delve deep into all of these areas along with a professor that specialized in the matter. The tutorial sessions - irrespective of the professor - typically flowed like a casual conversation, but in order for them to run effortlessly, extensive reading and preparation was required. Therefore, I usually drafted a weekly reflection paper and formulated discussion questions to guide the sessions, and thus, the conversation. By the end of each semester, I had developed a great relationship with the professor, but also a graduate-level understanding of the studied subject matter, all the while improving my research, writing, and analytical skills.  I must add that the benefits of the program extend beyond the classroom. During college, I participated in three internship experiences in the field of journalism, corporate communications, and political communications. Then, right after graduating, I started working in advertising. Now, I am a law school student. Undoubtedly, the reading, research, writing, and analytical skills acquired because of the HTC program via the tutorial courses helped me thrive in all of these different professional contexts.  This outcome is due to the fact that the skills learned during the program follow the students wherever they go. Since the program’s academic approach allowed me to think holistically, engage with sources in a critical manner, and develop creative approaches to address complex subjects, I was able to easily adapt to different work and academic environments and be a valuable thinker and team member, regardless of the field.