While I reflect on my undergraduate experience during my fourth and final year of college, I think about the various general education and elective courses I had to take. The highlight class for me was COM 346: Social and Cultural Aspects of Media taught by Professor Daniel Munksgaard.
I took this class in the fall semester of my third year. The class revolved around the history of media and the internet and how its development shaped the way we communicate and create. The professor had a lot of firsthand experience with the early days of the internet, making these lectures much more engaging.
Learning about the dawn of the internet was very interesting, as things we take for granted did not exist in the 1980s and 90s. For example the use of Graphical User Interfaces, what we often refer to as icons, were not commonplace until the early 90s.
Along with the lecture, we had discussions about what we thought of the material and how we, as students born in the early 2000s viewed it. Social media is a relatively new feature of the internet, but it was very interesting to discuss how influential it has become in such a short amount of time. It can be argued that social media is the majority of the internet, or how most people interact with it.
The class only had one major assignment, a presentation we had to do in the ‘pecha kucha’ style. Pecha kucha is a presentation format in which 20 slides are presented and 20 seconds are given for each slide. It forces the presenter to use their time wisely and not focus on unnecessary details.
To be honest, this assignment was a pain to set up, but I was very proud of my presentation in the end. We were allowed to make it about any piece or aspect of media we found interesting, and it was great to see all of my classmates’ interests present in their projects.
I made my presentation on furry culture and how it is often misrepresented and misunderstood. After I presented and was working on an unrelated reporting project, a classmate of mine came up to me and told me he liked my presentation and learned a lot. Even though it is very silly, it was one of my proudest moments in my college career.
I have recommended this class to other students as a relatively easy but fun class to take as an elective, especially for Harrington students. Communications can often have a reputation among students as a dry subject, but I think this class changed my mind about the field of study.
I also took COM 441: Race, Class and Gender in Media, taught by the same professor and a sort of spiritual successor to COM 346. That class focuses more on the sociological aspects of media rather than the history, which I found equally interesting.
The professor who taught these courses, Professor Munksgaard, has also been one of my favorite professors I’ve had at the University of Rhode Island. He is very smart, funny and empathetic, and I hope he will continue to teach at URI for years to come.
