The public speaking class I had to take in college probably did as much benefit for me as any other class I ever took. After that, I've never once had any problem whatsoever presenting or speaking to groups of people, rather it be in an academic or professional setting. I mean I still don't like it, I never have and never will as an introvert, but it gave me the experience, training, skills, and probably most importantly, the confidence to do it. Sometimes you don't realize what you need until you are forced to do it.
I like to cite as the prime example of this when I was a graduate assistant in the sports information department at my alma mater. I had an intern working for me at a softball game as the PA announcer, so he did the opening announcements, starting lineups, in-game announcements, etc. Well it was his first time doing, he got nervous and froze up in the middle of announcing the starting lineups. In hindsight I didn't set him up well for success on that particular day, I let him know that and took full blame for it.
I'd never done the announcing before either because I didn't want to and never needed to. Well I just took the mic from him, picked up where he left off, and finished off the pre-game announcements like it had been something I was accustomed to doing. Though I wasn't good at it because it's just not my thing and it was my first time doing it too and with zero preparation at that. Had I not had that public speaking class, I probably would have ****ed up the whole damn situation because I would have done everything I possibly could to avoid getting on that mic 😂.
Then when I moved on to my next college for a full-time job in the same field, it wasn't uncommon for me to do the announcing when I couldn't find a student employee to do the job because it wasn't a school that typically attracted students who wanted to work in sports. I don't really any of what people would consider public speaking now in my job in the medical field, but I still feel like that confidence instilled in me has been beneficial in my frequent interactions with patients.
And I think a lot of the college classes I took just really exposed me to different things - like different people, classes, experiences, beliefs, ideas, etc. that I had never been exposed to before because my parents forced me to live a fairly sheltered existence.
I was taught by numerous people who thought and believe some of the same stuff I did, and numerous others that didn't. I remember pretty vividly being in complete disagreement with the pro-gun control professor I had in my political science class (I was raised in a pretty significantly right leaning household with little to no exposure to any other belief system) while being in complete agreement with the openly proud Republican economics professor I had. I was a stubborn bastard back then. It wasn't until years after when I decided to start changing things about my life that I genuinely became open to different beliefs and started changing my opinions and beliefs on things.
I got to learn about many things I had little to zero knowledge of that I found particularly interesting. Getting to hear regularly from guest speakers who have jobs in their field from a variety of different professions was also something insightful and something that was never really broadly available where I grew up outside of the colleges until the whole streaming video thing took off. Now you can go on YouTube and listen/watch to TED Talks and podcasts and stuff like that all you want!
Perhaps the most interesting, despite me being at most at any point in my entire life a Christian in name only, was the Religions of Asia class. Getting to learn about the real facts and beliefs of Janiism, Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, Taosim, Zoroastrianism, etc.without the prejudice of screaming heads on TV (and locally, being from the hometown of Liberty University after all!) was enlightening!
Being forced to learn things you don't think you'll never use or hear things that don't fit your current belief system isn't a bad thing (as long as it isn't legitimate indoctrination). You often may not realize the benefits of it until down the road. You may realize that you think differently on things after being exposed to a different viewpoint that you may not have been exposed to in a civil, reasoned fashion in the past, or heck, maybe hearing an opposing belief presented in a civil, reasoned fashion may even further believe whatever you already believe!
And some fields of study may not be ones that necessarily generate a lot of jobs or high paying jobs directly in the field, but they provide the knowledge, skills, and experience that are hugely beneficial in others! Like take philosophy and English, when's the last time you knew of someone who got well paying, stable employment working in philosophy or English (other than being a college professor)? Probably never, but those are two great degrees to get if you want to become a lawyer.
