Making Your GenEds Work for You

Like all liberal arts colleges, part of your time at Temple will be spent taking general education courses – the “GenEds”. Temple’s ultimate goal with the GenEd curriculum is “equipping students to make connections between what they learn, their lives and their communities”. Even with this in mind, it’s easy to lose sight of the purpose GenEds serve in our education. As aspiring PR professionals, classes like “The Chemistry of Wine” and “Math Patterns” don’t offer much in the way of preparing us for our careers. But there are ways to take advantage of your GenEd requirements and make the classes work for you.

With so many options, choosing your GenEds can seem like a difficult task, but it helps to consider your professional goals and take note of specific skills you (and potential employers) find important. Forbes.com lists the top 10 skills employers most want in recent graduates, as determined by the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE). The list highlights basic skills like working in a team environment and problem solving, and other more specific skills like data analysis and software knowledge.

Using this list as a guide, here are a few suggestions for more relevant GenEd courses:

Business 101: Why PR Students Should Take A Business Class

Most, if not all, aspiring PR pros shudder at the thought of taking a business course. We went into public relations for a reason; to avoid taking accounting, economics and any other classes that involve numbers. That may be a bit of an exaggeration but I have yet to meet a PR student or professional that enjoys the subject of math. 

A professor recently told my class he had taken a basic business course while he was in college and that, although he absolutely despised it, it was one of the best decisions he ever made. Why you ask? Simply because everything in life is a business. There is no getting around it. If you are looking to become successful in the public relations field, you will most definitely be working with clients who only speak in business lingo. That means they communicate in terms of numbers, metrics and, most importantly, money. 

Public relations is all about knowing your audience. There will be numerous points throughout your career in which your audience is going to be upper management and business professionals. It is our job as aspiring PR pros to learn their language. There is a serious need for young professionals to understand the realm of business. Knowing certain business jargon will not only be beneficial to you, it will also help to put you ahead of your peers. In today's job market, you should be willing to do anything and everything that will put you ahead of others. 

So, instead of using that elective credit on a pointless aerobics class or a boring music class, aim instead to take a business course. Look for an introduction to management, marketing or a business 101 course to give you that extra knowledge that will not only open up your mind, but will help to get you ahead in your career!

What business courses have you taken? Let us know!