What This Class Taught Me (Even While I Was Still Figuring Out What This Class Was...)

When I signed up for COMM 1000, I genuinely had no idea what I was walking into. The course description sounded like every generic intro class on earth: “how humans use messages to create meaning across contexts.” Umm, what? It didn’t tell me if we’d be giving speeches, studying TikTok, communicating in teams, or decoding cave drawings. A “survey” of communication sounded like something where I would just skim topics and move on. I thought it would be basic. Light. A required box to check off. Nothing too deep.

But somewhere between my professor’s very sweet dog interrupting class every other week, her remote lectures from Tulsa, our random film detours, and the actual communication lessons, I realized something: communication is not just talking. It’s everything happening around the talking. It’s culture, conflict, silence, misunderstanding, body language, voice notes, addiction, digital overload, and the way Black folks say whole paragraphs without ever opening our mouths. How cool are we?!

INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION AKA: "THE LANGUAGE BENEATH THE LANGUAGE"

This unit hit home because culture shapes every piece of how I communicate. Being a Black woman from New York City means my tone has a tone. My face has a dialect. My sideeye is a sentence. When we talked about intercultural communication, it helped me understand why some moments in my life have been so misunderstood; like how white co-workers think I’m “intense” when I’m simply being direct, or how my own family has entire conversations in silence.

CONFLICT & NEGOTIATION (OTHERWISE KNOWN AS “ME TRYING TO TALK TO PEOPLE WHO DON’T LISTEN”)

This unit felt like therapy light. I loved how we talked about conflict styles because it made me realize: I negotiate everything. Even breathing. Even with my child.

With friends? I’m collaborative.

With men? I’m cautious.

With coworkers? I’m diplomatically blunt.

And with my daughter Kori? Lord. We are in a permanent conflict negotiation dance because she is nine years old, has an iPhone, and thinks she has presidential level screen time rights. Her dad got her the phone at six because of guilt and co-parenting complications, and ever since then, I’ve been fighting a technological demon. Digital communication has changed our relationship. I see her become overstimulated, distracted, emotionally unavailable all before age ten. Negotiating boundaries with a child raised on FaceTime is a whole new era of communication. And I don't think I'm handling this well.

HEALTH COMMUNICATION (WHERE MY LIFE STORY FINALLY MADE SENSE AS “CURRICULUM”)

This was the most personal unit. Talking about how messages shape health choices brought me back to being a baby in the rooms of Narcotics Anonymous. My mother, grandmother, and father were all addicts. I grew up watching what real, raw, community rooted health communication looked like. NA was honest. And direct. And human. That’s not how substance abuse is talked about in mainstream America, where addiction became a “public health crisis” only when white kids started overdosing. Communication is political. Communication decides whose pain is urgent and whose pain is cultural background noise.

The National Cancer Institute’s Theory at a Glance reading explained how behavior change relies on clear messaging, cultural relevance, and trust, three things mainstream health communication has historically not given Black communities. That gap keeps showing up in modern issues, from COVID misinformation to the opioid crisis. This unit helped me understand why the communication I witnessed in NA saved lives: it was honest, culturally grounded, and rooted in accountability.

AND IF YOU NEEDED PROOF THAT MY DAUGHTER IS A DIGITIAL CITIZEN, HERE IT GOES!

WHO I AM NOW AS A COMMUNICATOR

This class didn’t transform me into a communication scholar, but it did something better: it made me aware. Aware of how I talk, how I listen, and how culture directs my conversations. It shows how conflict reveals my boundaries, and how media shapes my daughter, and even how silence carries history.

I see myself now as someone who communicates with intention. Someone who blends transparency with humor. Someone who still has to work on patience, timing, and not assuming people can read my mind just because I said everything with my eyebrows. That's reserved for kinfolk.

But most importantly, I see communication as identity. Culture. Survival. And connection.

And for a class I thought would be boring? That’s not a bad takeaway at all.