Hola!

School is right around the corner!  Hopefully everyone is ready.  I certainly am!  My name is Janelle Manuel and this will be my fourth year in college and second year at UM-Flint.  I transferred here in Fall 2012 and am thankful of my decision everyday.

When I first got here I was very apprehensive about getting to know my new fellow students, seeing that people in my year of schooling probably already had their specific group of friends, but when I got here I was welcomed with open arms.  It almost felt like I had been a student at UM-Flint from my first day of college!  As a fourth year student,  I am now mentally preparing for graduation.  Though this is not my last year,  I know that the end will be here before I know it.

I am a Communication major, but my focus is in Public Health. At my previous school, I was a Health Science major focusing on pre-physical therapy. Though I loved my courses, I felt myself feeling confined in an area of study that if I was to abandon once I graduated, I would have to start over again in schooling, a fear that many people have when picking a major. When I transferred, I knew I wanted to stay in health courses, but I didn’t necessarily want to be a Health major. I decided to change my major to Communication because I thought it fit with my public health/health education classes (that I’ll be taking as a minor). In almost  any profession, you must know how to present yourself and also the information you are trying to provide to the masses. Not only may public speaking be involved, there will also be multiple small group and one-on-one conversations that you will be apart of. Bottom line: you must know how to communicate with people. Even if you don’t like talking all the time (Which is me; I live for alone time and feel much more comfortable behind a computer screen. Introverts Anonymous baby.),  you will not survive in the work place without the proper communication tools.

Whether I decide to be a health education teacher,  community health director,  worker for a non-profit org, or even an astronaut!…okay, maybe not an astronaut…but my point is, these COM classes can be applied to anything I decide to do.  So though I am a COM major who doesn’t always like to communicate in my social life (some of you reading this have probably never heard my voice…okay, most of you.), through my schooling here at UM-Flint, I am learning how to communicate for my professional life, and that is all that matters.