I was expecting college to be a lot different from high school. I knew I would have less classroom hours, but more spent in the library. I knew that I would have more variety when it came to school lunches. I knew I would eventually take classes that related to the rest of my life, unlike my high school pre-calculus class.

But I had no idea about the speakers.

I’ve been a “college student” for almost three months now and have already had five guest speakers in my classes.

David Bornstein visited my CMST 1000 class in early September. As a journalism major, I was fascinated by his capability of creating a whole new discipline of this field: solution journalism. The news seems only to report on the depressing states of our society, like crimes. Solution journalism is all about how to fix the world’s problems through social entrepreneurship and social innovation. He has a blog with religious followers and writes a weekly column for The New York Times. And yet he had time to stop by and talk at Marquette. How cool is that?

My professor for Comm 1200 has brought on three speakers thus far. Andrea Kepfer is a Marquette law school professor and talked to our class about entertainment law. We were reading about entertainment law in our class that week, so to have someone knowledgeable in the field speak to our intro level comm class was awesome.

Mitch Nelles was another speaker for Comm 1200. He is a salesman, radio talk show host, and VP of Good Karma Broadcasting (GKB). He emphasized the importance of networking and thinking outside the box. The executive board of GKB has got the company to expand into event planning. The company has also bought several houses near Lambeau Field to host pre-game parties for big names.

The last speaker for my Comm class was Noah Rickun, a motivational speaker and social media guru. He discussed the “Big Four” sites: LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube and how employers will value your online reputation more than your resume in the future. With almost 50,000 followers on Twitter, Rickun said anyone in the communication field without a Twitter will have a hard time finding a job. Guess who got a Twitter after that lecture? Follow me @KellyMeyerhofer!

Elizabeth Fay, a CBS 58 television reporter, talked to my Journalism 1100 class two days after the Brookfield spa shooting. Fay described the slow news day and how she covered the first hour of the shooting alone. She was interviewing, running camera, and phoning the station for more reporters simultaneously. Hearing about a journalist’s day-in-the-life duties made me excited to graduate and step into the work force.

I’ve been surprised by so many things at Marquette: how nice the people are, how surprisingly good the food is, how fast I’ve made friends. But I’m probably most surprised by how much my professors try to make lecture relatable. Bringing guest speakers in the industries we’re discussing in class has made education relevant. It’s made it interesting. It’s made it what it should be… fun.