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����Թ� State senior Sarah Viers, ’23, entered college as an undecided freshman. In the School of Communication Studies, she found not just her major, but also discovered the power of her voice.

“It wasn’t until I took the mandatory Intro to Human Communication class, that I absolutely fell in love with Communication Studies,” she said. “I’ve always been much more of a nervous and timid person, but in that class, I found a love for speaking and communicating with other people and learning different ways of going about that.”

Since that class, Viers has learned about the many ways she can apply what she’s learning in communication studies to the real world.

“You can do almost anything you want with it,” she said. “That is great for someone like me who can’t commit to just one decision. I want to do many things in life, and I don’t want to settle on just one just yet.”

She is particularly drawn to using communication as a tool for advocacy, and decided to minor in Media Advocacy when the College of Communication and Information first announced the offering in 2020.

“It just seemed so fitting for the time,” Viers said. “Being an advocate in today’s age is so important. Communication goes hand in hand with that, in terms of learning how to be a proper advocate, learning how to use the media in order to advocate for yourself and for causes. I find that as we progress as a society, this minor is becoming more and more important.”

Viers said she is most passionate about women’s rights, LGBTQ+ rights and intersectional human rights.

“I want to create a more equitable and just world, and give everybody an opportunity to make the impact that they want to,” she said.

As she looks forward to what’s next, Viers is thankful for the faculty in the School of Communication who have supported her on her college journey.

“COMM professors … really do care about you and they want to put you on the right path,” she said. “They will go out of their way to get to know you and give you a guiding light.”