The student that struggled most in my  Spanish class was a native speaker.  So if a person can speak, read and write a language, why bother studying it anymore?  Thinking it would be an easy A, my classmate brushed off the idea that effective communication with any long-range versatility is more than just the day-to-day basics.  He realized late in the game, he had to put more in: more study, more practice, more play.  Jorge begrudged any tedium, but as the course progressed, he seemed to take more and more pride in his work and his heritage.  

Communications, as a field of study, has many dimensions with the bulk of material relating to reading, writing, and foreign language, but it is bigger than that.  Communication is elemental to community, connecting us to one another and to the ideas and events that form the dynamic manifold of cultures humans thrive in.  As a fundamental means of development, communication not only forms civilizations, but also the very architecture of each individual’s brain.  

As the structure and machinery through which we define, exchange and process ideas and knowledge, communications is the foundation to all other subjects of study. That machinery can be advanced with smooth efficiencies or rudimentary with limited functionality.  Therefore, studying the mechanics and art of communication facilitates more effective and meaningful education in all other areas of study.  It also amps up any experience with that trace spice of wit or intrigue that otherwise falls below the radar.  Most importantly though, communications, in all its multiplex forms, is our means of relating to one another…the mechanism through which we build relationships of any kind.