Re: Titles and names

Martin Cohen (mcohen@UCLA.EDU)
Sat, 2 Mar 1996 14:09:00 -0700

Larry Davies sought advice:

>My interest have been moving toward the study of
>intercultural communicative competence and I am starting to teach
>"introduction to intercultural communicaton" classes.

>I'm writing mainly to tap you knowledge of good Ph.D. Programs in
>Intercultural Communication that also have strong Asian/Pacific Studies
>departments. I'm not sure whether I should do a Ph.D. in Anthropology,
>Communication, Educational Technology, Sociology, Psychology...but all of
>these fall somewhere with the study of "learning and teaching culture."

Rather than suggest a particular program, I ask you to consider the
employment you seek after completion. My bias is that there are several
anthropology programs that will allow you to pursue the study of
intercultural communication, and are well-rounded and will allow you to
study how people actually communicate _in vivo_. In fact, intellectually,
I believe anthropology would be the best choice. But anthropology is also
an incredibly hard sell in the job market. When you apply for a job in
education, business or elsewhere, be prepared for odd responses such as "we
don't have any dinosaurs here." They will, however, understand the
relevance of a degree communication, education, psych, etc., even if you
are actually more limited in your background and understanding of the
issues at hand.

Martin Cohen