Description of the video:
Communication Degree Transcript – July 2021
An aerial shot of New York City is seen on a smartphone sitting on a desk. A voice is heard as the video zooms into the smartphone and then you see the face of the voice, Sydney McIlrath on camera.
A series of interviews follow about Communication Arts at Indiana University Kokomo takes place.
Alumna Sydney McIlrath sits on campus with the Main Building behind her as she speaks.
Sydney McIlrath (SM): The trip to New York City definitely changed my life.
Isaac Beechy sits on campus with Hunt Hall behind him as he speaks.
Isaac Beechy (IB): We did a ton of fun things like going to a Broadway show. We did the 911 museum.
Sydney McIlrath continues:
SM: Probably going to NBC studios. We even went to the Nasdaq and talked to some people there who had communications degrees. We got to see the behind the scenes of a lot of things. And it was like “someone with a communications degree does this?” and you're like… “okay!”
Chris Darr, Professor of Communication Arts, speaks on campus with the quad behind him.
Chris Darr, Professor of Communication Arts (CD): They had a good time, but they also learned a lot about what their career might look like. So, our students go into careers like public relations, social media management, sales, journalism, etc. And they actually do the work while they're here.
Asya Randolph speaks with Hunt Hall sitting behind her.
Asya Randolph (AR): As far as the communications program, I don't feel like it gets the light that it deserves. On the outside looking in before I got into the program, I probably would have thought the same thing like how hard is it to communicate? There was a class that I took, research methods, that blew my mind, like what goes into research!
Isaac Beechy sits on campus with Hunt Hall behind him as he speaks.
IB: One thing that did attract me IU Kokomo was the small classrooms. Going to Eastern High School, I always had small classrooms and I did well in that environment and I didn't want to change it up.
Sydney McIlrath sits on campus with the Main Building behind her as she speaks.
SM: After that trip I was like, “you can take this degree anywhere!” You can do so many different things with it.
Chris Darr, Professor of Communication Arts, speaks on campus with the quad behind him.
CD: Because you're going to learn job skills that are in high demand. You're going to be prepared for a job market that wants people who are good communicators, can solve problems, can work well with others… you're going to learn all those things here. 95 percent of students who get communication degrees are working in their field within two years.
Brandon Bishop, Market Director, Coca-Cola Bottling Company, Kokomo, IN speaks in the Coca-Cola warehouse.
Brandon Bishop, Market Director, Coca-Cola Bottling Company, Kokomo, IN: We look for candidates with strong communication skills, so having that strong communications background starting in the workplace… home run! The experience that they gain talking to professionals, doing mock interviews, you know, mock pitches that they do at IUK, that I've been a part of as well, that just gives them more experience to come in on day one at the workplace and hit the ground running.
Being an outsider looking at somebody that has a communications degree, like immediately I'm gonna look at, you know, that industry is, you know, probably news, you know, some kind of media right? You know whether it be radio television, whatever the case may be, but I mean communication is in every single industry.
And you know we were talking about, you know, a new hire like that just… that just takes you from day one to week six on the onboarding and you can actually start getting into what your job really is.
Sydney McIlrath sits on campus with the Main Building behind her as she speaks.
SM: You can really do anything, you can go anywhere, you can do whatever you want like if you put your mind to it, you've got it
The screen cuts to an aerial video of New York City as the text “Come learn more about where a communication arts degree can take you! Visit.iuk.edu” appears on the screen.
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