CMNS (Communications)

Hey everyone,

My name is Flora and I thought I should start a thread for the best-looking program at SFU... the School of Communications! (I'm totally not joking.) I'm entering my third year in the program in Fall 2008, so if anyone has any questions about what CMNS is all about (the courses, the profs, the jobs, etc.), feel free to ask, and I'll try my best to answer.

P.S. Any other BN alumni who are majoring in Communication? Hollaaa!

Actually, I'm already a SFU student and I'm still not sure what communications is. But based on their textbooks, they have some really interesting courses. I know one course is currently using "Art of Seduction" and "48 words of power" as resources for the class. Cool, and kinda strange.

But what does communications study? Like, how we communicate? Do you later get a job working with the media or something?

Communications is pretty broad in terms of what we study. The lower-level classes cover everything from models of communication, history of communications technology, capitalism and consumerism, modernity, propaganda, the political economy, cultural industries, etc. Big names in communications include McLuhan, the Frankfurt scholars, Marx, Bourdieu, etc. When you get to the 300/400-level courses, you branch off into the different fields, such as publishing, journalism, and mass media. I'm loving my major because there is so much I could do with it

Because CMNS graduates usually find jobs in broadcasting, public relations, and advertising, people usually get misconceptions about what we study. The SFU School of Communications is a critical school (as opposed to a mainstream school), so we approach issues through a kind of leftist perspective. It's kind of weird because I'm planning to go into advertising, but most of my courses are about how evil capitalism and mass consumerism is . I still think it's important to gain different perspectives though because knowing the whole picture will help you play the game better Which makes us kind of evil, I guess...

Haha, I've heard so many arguments between business people who think that communication majors are idealistic and naive, while communications majors think that business people are greedy capitalist pigs

So communication majors also go into journalism? That's interesting 'cause I considered that once (but never really moved on that). Do you know a lot of people who go into journalism from communications? It doesn't seem like journalism requires a communications degree as I don't think all schools carry a communications program.