Can someone please give me honest information about the Communication Studies Program?

mikemac
Thu, 04 Aug 2016 23:46:52 +0000

I am really interested in getting a job in PR, advertising, or something of that nature, so Communication Studies seemed like the best fit for me and UCLA is my dream school.

A liberal arts degree like Comm Studies is not a job training program. That degree and $2 will get you a cup of coffee. There are some schools that have programs aimed specifically at journalism, advertising, PR, etc. but the one at UCLA is not one of them.

What gets you a job in these fields is experience usually gained via internships and summer jobs. Someone could make a case that with the prestige of the name and with UCLA located near Hollywood these may be easier to land and while there may be a bit of truth in that, the flip side is that there are plenty of Bruins with Comm Studies degrees and the like that have trouble finding a job requiring a college degree, let alone one in the fields you mentioned.

What it comes down to for you is making a $110K bet with no promise of finding a job in your chosen fields. A bet where you don’t know the general odds in advance; nobody does. Indeed the odds are actually worse for you than for many because the entry-level jobs in these fields are notorious for low or no pay at the starting level (look up the lawsuits against the movie industry over unpaid “internships” with menial tasks like getting coffee and making copies if you don’t believe me) and while many who take these end up giving up there are always a few that break thru. With this debt hanging over you and student loans coming due you won’t even be able to take one of these jobs on the outside chance it pans out.

Since you asked for advice, here’s mine. Stay in AZ, see if you can find a program with specific degrees in the fields you are interested in, get as many internships and volunteer positions as you can related to your interests, graduate debt-free or as low as you can and then start to climb the ladder whether it be starting in AZ or CA.

I’ve read other posts on this site about the major and half of the commenters say “you’ll never find a job and it’s a fluff degree,” and the other half say “this is a great program in the entertainment capital of the world and my friends who graduated have super cool jobs in Hollywood. I want to believe the second half of commenters,”

These sound like posts from HS kids that see the world in black-or-white terms, or perhaps it is your summary of posts you’ve read. Sadly, the real world is at neither extreme, although almost certainly farther away from the 2nd claim. That you hope one of these is plausible is a worrisome sign.