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1.1: Why Public Speaking

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    151965
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    graduating student.jpg

    Image 1.1 Graduating Student

    So you have found yourself having to take a public speaking course and you are probably wondering why. Or maybe you are simply interested in becoming a more well-rounded communicator. There are plenty of reasons why public speaking is not only a desirable course, but also a required course:

    • we live in a democratic society with the First Amendment right guaranteeing freedom of expression or what we like to call Free Speech;
    • we may need to advocate for ourselves or others in a public forum;
    • most of our future careers or jobs would prefer for us to be skilled in communicating;
    • it is a GE (general education) requirement at this college and at the CSU's and UC's;
    • and it's a required course for an FCC degree.

    Freedom of Speech

    BILLOFRIGHTS1.jpgImage 1.2 Bill of Rights

    Democracies throughout time have had a long tradition of oral communication as a way to express the ideas and desires of a country's population. Collectively, here in the United States, we believe in that democratic tradition and that tradition is guaranteed to us in the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights. In order to participate effectively in a democracy that provides space for freedom of expression, it is necessary to build our communication tool kit to include the skills associated with public speaking.

    Public Advocacy

    As part of our democratic freedom of expression, you may find yourself in a situation that requires you to advocate - speak for - yourself or others. Maybe the college parking fees are too expensive, but no one has shared that opinion with the campus president. Through this course, you will develop the skills to advocate in front of the administration - given the opportunity - to lower the parking fees.

    Career Skills

    Employers want their employees to be able to communicate effectively; therefore communication skills are always listed in the top ten most desirable employee skills (Peart, 2019); Forbes lists verbal communication as the 5th most important skill. In addition to being able to clearly write our ideas, employers want us to be able to clearly verbalize our ideas.

    University GE Requirement

    For many four-year universities, public speaking in a requirement for graduation. Many of you all will be transferring to CSU's or UC's and will need to have passed your public speaking course in order to earn a degree from either of those college systems. Take a look at the Cal State website to learn more about general education requirements, which are part of lower division requirements, in order to graduate: California State Universities GE Requirements .

    Local Graduation Requirement

    In addition to public speaking as a required GE course for the CSU's or UC's, students must take a course with a public speaking component to graduate from our college. If you are curious about your other GE requirements, check out FCC's GE website.

    Like we stated at the beginning of this chapter, public speaking has a long tradition within the context of democracy. And we cover the history of public speaking in the next section.

    References

    Peart, N. (2019). The 12 most Important skills you need to succeed at work. Forbes. Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/natalia...h=10fdb4a31c6a .


    1.1: Why Public Speaking is shared under a CC BY-NC-SA license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by LibreTexts.

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