Iron Ridge Creative

The past eight weeks have really flown by!

Communication Fluency (COM 601) did a great job of introducing the study of communication and the guidelines of APA style. It was fascinating to learn about how our daily lives are so dominated by a variety of communications. This contact is the root of our human experience, and my studies in this course did a great job of reinforcing that. I’m also glad that an orientation to APA style was included in the curriculum; it would have been difficult to move forward without getting a chance to learn the style.

My favorite part of the course was getting to see everyone’s digital presentations on their Inquiry Project. While I feel like we’ve always been taught to see the “moral of the story,” learning and applying Burke’s “equipment for living” showed me the real power of rhetoric. Films, as a form of literature, can elicit a greater understanding of the world around us and have a noticeable impact on our daily lives. As I feel particularly impacted by the film I chose, Call Me By Your Name, it was great to see which films had influenced my classmates.

I saw the power of fear and its political ramifications in Shannan’s examination at V for Vendetta. Lee’s look at Edge of Tomorrow taught us to live in the moment and make the best of our current situation. Olivia’s take on Get Out validated our ongoing struggle with race relations, but showed us that change is still possible. I found these projects to be my favorites since I’m especially familiar with these films. However, I enjoyed learning about “equipment for living” from films I haven’t seen yet or don’t remember well!

For me, the Inquiry Project was a lot of work. I ended up spending a lot more time on it than originally expected. However, my final products—the paper and the digital presentation—made this my favorite project in the course.

Most of the time, I looked like this:

But there were other times that I looked like this:

And I sure as heck didn’t get these shots right on the first try:

I feel like the Inquiry Project taught me how to discuss and articulate things I care about with much more ease. While the digital nature of this course might say otherwise, I hope that the skills I learned will improve my public speaking. This was also my first class and writing exercise in nearly four years, and I feel like it was a great springboard for becoming a student again.

At the same time, there were certainly difficult times in this course. Only being able to communicate digitally with my classmates and teachers was completely new to me. I certainly had some frustration with conflicting messages and lack of communication at times. However, I wouldn’t trade this experience for any other. When the going got tough, the class pulled it all together and made things happen. Our collective effort—in conjunction with the professor’s guidance—created a supportive, yet challenging learning environment. I’m so glad that I took this next step in my education, and I can’t wait to begin our next class together!