Blog, The First

This is quite exciting, my first blog ever! I feel as if I'm entering a whole new level of my status online. Onto my thoughts on why I feel communication is required by colleges and universities. The skill of communication is such a vital piece in maintaining a job, a friendship, a marriage, in staying sane among many other things. Without knowing how to be an effective communicator we would be walking around as crazy people unaware of how to share our thoughts and feelings with anyone else and in turn our world would come to a stand-still. It is wonderful to attain knowledge but if we are not able to express it in an approachable and understandable way your words would go unheard and unaccounted for. You look at the most influential human beings in our world today and in the past, they were great communicators. Words like, "I have a dream.." and "Let it be" would have never been written down and remembered if it wasn't for the clear way in which the speech or song was given.

When I look at how communication is a part of my own life it makes me laugh because I am constantly communicating. Being a vocal music major I have been learning how to effectively stand on a stage in front of many people and portray a message for years. It has been a process to become comfortable exposing so much of yourself and being vulnerable, but it is such an amazing moment when you are able to connect with an audience. This goes the same with stage acting and class debates I have been a part of. Beyond these more professional situations I have taken bits of both my mom and dad's personality in that conversation comes pretty naturally to me. Many of my favorite moments have been hours over a cup of coffee with a good friend just sharing our praises and pains with each other. In both of these type of situations you must learn how to make your words mean something meaningful to get across the message you're trying to portray.

I enjoyed learning about what intrapersonal communication is. This term was not a familiar one to me but I think that it is the most important form of communication we have. To some this may be a bold statement but I believe that for ourselves to truly be effective in communicating with those around us we need to understand ourselves first. College has taught me a ton about that. I have been able to meet and be in relationship with so many different people who have different opinions than me on many different levels but they have been such life-giving relationships. This isn't to say that I changed my moral or ethical value because of them but it has helped me to look beyond myself and into another perspective. But before I was able to do that in a effective way I had to know how I felt on some issues or where I stood on certain subjects. Many times, especially with our busy schedules we don't take the time to stop and digest what is going on in our lives. We are so busy with meetings, class, work, friends, homework, boyfriends or girlfriends, that we don't take the time to know what we are feeling or how we are doing. As we understand ourselves better I believe we will be able to understand those around us in an even bigger way.