The Struggle of Choosing a Major

Myles Williams

Andrew Will, a Department of Mass Communication professor at UWG, went through the major indecision like most college students, not knowing what to major in until much later in his college experience.

“When I started college I declared engineering as my major since I heard they made a lot of money,” said Will. “But after I saw my teacher put those numbers on the board I knew this wasn’t for me, then I majored in fine arts for about a year but then I thought what kind of job I could get with this.

“I thought about what I enjoyed when I was a child and what I enjoyed was having my own radio station,” continued Will. “I had a dyno-mic that would allow me to bleed over a radio frequency and would allow people to hear my voice, but only across the street. My little brother would help me make commercials and I remember having fun doing that so after that I decided to major in Communications and it was no turning back.”

Will started teaching part time in 2011and became full time at UWG in 2015, totalling him 12 years at UWG today. While being at the University of West Georgia for that long, Will has taught his fair share of classes.

“I’ve taught a number of courses, the very first course I taught was TV production, radio production, radio practicum, Broadcast News Writing and Reporting, Intro to Mass Communication, Media Ethics and I also taught Sports Communication,” said Will.

For Will, working at UWG was just supposed to be part time work for him. Especially since it was not too far from him.

“At the time I was teaching at Clark Atlanta University, and I was looking for some part time work as a part time professor at a different school and at that time I was just looking for another school to teach at, soI could get some extra classes under my belt,” said Will. “I lived in Douglasville, so I knew about the University of West Georgia so it made me interested in what it has to offer.” 

Every teacher always has a favorite part of teaching students something in class. Professor Will has a few aspects that he loves to see in the classroom.

“I love to have “wide-eye” students to where I amaze them about how certain stuff would work and see them so astonished by it,” said Will. “My favorite aspect of teaching students is just to excite them about how things work and to make them feel good about the major they choose.”

Certain teachers help impact student’s lives in ways they could not even imagine. Those teachers are the ones that students will always remember for the rest of their life. Will has definitely done his part to help impact student’s lives any way possible.

“I like to have one-on-one sessions with students, so that they can understand the importance of education and the importance of getting out there in the field,” said Will. “I like to tell them a lot about internships so that they can get ready to start acareer right after college if that’s their plan.”

“I truly believe in education, and people bettering themselves,” continued Will. “If a student needs a recommendation letter I’d give it to them. I’ve had times where I gave a recommendation letter to notso good students because I saw something in them that they could bring to an industry or organization.”