Lately I've been running into people who are pursuing degrees in a new field called "communications", because apparently the life skills of conversation, clear writing, and basic oratory are not something people learn as they go. The goal most of these young people express is to become a professional motivational speaker and change other people's lives.
Exactly why other people's lives need changing isn't quite clear to me. Is this really a thing?
I understand signing up for a seminar on something you want to learn, which might be anything from a time management technique to a class on how to correctly install flooring. I also understand wanting to go hear someone like Larry Winget because he's just that entertaining. But how many motivational speakers or public speakers can a nation's economy really support? Is it education, or entertainment, or both?
Should we perhaps call it "edutainment"?
I'm told there's a circuit of some kind, with different speakers coming to town for different things, but half of them seem to be hawking a real estate mentoring service and a good third are politicians angling for lobbying grease. There are also a lot of people who "umm" and "you know" their way through a ten minute TED talks but deliver about sixty seconds of content, are applauded for it and E-fellated on social media as though they'd just delivered the modern equivalent of the Gettysburg Address. If we set aside all of those people, how many are actually delivering content?
How many actually have something to say, such that it's worth paying to listen? I'd really only consider listening to people who have accomplished something that I want to do, or who have discovered something new, or who have overcome a major challenge of some sort. Dissertation presentation: good. Rah-rah real estate session with a book pitch at the end: less so.
Maybe I'm just being more of a snob than usual. But of all the aspiring speakers I've met so far, there's only one young man whose life I consider to be motivational. He was born with what most people would consider to be severe disabilities, but has worked around them in a very impressive way and it's given him some very unique insights into human nature. I truly believe he's walked the walk and is already an authority on overcoming adversity. That gives him a story worth sharing and also insights that have allowed him to truly help other people in the past. For this reason, he's already a minor media celebrity in the town where he lives. I'm pretty sure he could make it as a motivational speaker for these reasons. I've got a ton of respect for this kid. The others? Not so much.
Is this wave of communications majors a new thing? I don't remember that it really existed as a field of study back when I was an undergraduate, but of course back then if you wanted to write an essay draft on a "tablet" you had to bring your own chisel and hammer.