One of the most dreaded general education requirements, Fundamentals of Oral Communication, may no longer be accessible to a vast majority of the student body, even those who actually want to take it.
The class that used to be SPC 1600 is now SPC 1608, and beginning this fall only 30 sections will be offered by the College of Sciences and the Nicholson School of Communication rather than 75.
As a result, the COM 1000 Introduction to Communication course will become a much more popular alternative, but there are still two major stipulations that come with using this option.
First of all, no majors have listed this course as a preference or as a requirement to fulfill the communication foundation requirement.
This leaves one to wonder if there is even a point to taking it.
In addition, since the course usually has anywhere from 130 to 250 students enrolled, they are not required to actually make speeches in front of their classmates.
Students study theories and models of communication, but are not able to try them out and observe their effectiveness. Again, what is the point here?
UCF is obviously trying to save some money with the reduced class sections, but since the general education requirements haven’t changed, it would make more sense for the university to cut the number of sections for the COM 1000 course while increasing the number for SPC 1608.
It would be doing the student body a service in more ways than one.
Not only would students be able to actually enroll in a class they need to graduate, they would have a better chance to develop a skill that is a necessity for all careers.
Public speaking usually isn’t a talent students like to display — for some it can even be terrifying — but the ability to express yourself and explain concepts to a professor and a group of students will help during job interviews, interactions with co-workers and in other classes.
12 comments
"no majors have listed this course [COM1000] as a preference or as a requirement to fulfill the communication foundation requirement. This leaves one to wonder if there is even a point to taking it."
First of all, major departments do not have a say in which Gen Ed courses students in their major can take. They can suggest a preference of a Gen Ed course in a category, but the major department does not have the power to "accept" or "not accept" any Gen Ed courses. Therefore, every student on this campus can take COM1000 to meet the Oral Communication Gen Ed requirement, and there is nothing the department of their major could do about it to no accept it.
"UCF is obviously trying to save some money with the reduced class sections, but since the general education requirements haven’t changed, it would make more sense for the university to cut the number of sections for the COM 1000 course while increasing the number for SPC 1608."
Let's think about this... about 250 students can take COM1000 in one classroom. About 25 students can take SPC1608 in one classroom. Therefore, the university has to pay 1 instructor to teach 250 students in COM1000 and it has to pay 10 instructors to teach 250 students in SPC1608.
Here's a great idea!!! How about we pay 10x more money to add more sections of SPC1608, and to even it out, UCF CUTS YOUR MAJOR.
I totally agree that it would be great to offer more sections of SPC1608, but in reality, the UCF budget is being cut and some things must bend to accommodate.