Studying Speech to Create a Career Path with Cassandra Wingert

Think speech class is just about public speaking? Think again. In this episode, Pierre Michaels sits down with Cassandra Wingert, Assistant Professor of Speech Communication at College of DuPage, to explore how communication skills shape career success in every field—from healthcare to business to law. Cassandra shares how speech courses build confidence, foster leadership, and prepare students for real-world challenges through hands-on experiences like mock interviews and persuasive presentations. Whether you're nervous about speaking up or ready to lead the conversation, this episode will show you how communication can be your most powerful career tool.

View the College of DuPage Speech Communication program
Contact the Speech Communication program or Cassandra Wingert directly by emailing wingertc@cod.edu

Full episode transcript can be found on the episode page. Below is a general timestamp summary.

00:00–00:01:30
Introduction
Host Pierre Michaels introduces the Career Ready podcast and welcomes guest Cassandra Wingert, Assistant Professor of Speech Communication at College of DuPage.

00:01:30–00:03:40
Cassandra’s Background & Role
Cassandra shares her teaching philosophy and the importance of communication skills in all professional settings.

00:03:40–00:06:50
Value of Speech Communication Across Careers
Discussion on how communication skills apply to various fields like healthcare, marketing, and law, and how they enhance employability and promotability.

00:06:50–00:09:00
Soft Skills and Classroom Experience
Exploration of how speech classes build confidence, empathy, and community through interactive learning and feedback.

00:09:00–00:11:30
Hard Skills and Transferable Skills
Students gain practical skills like public speaking, interviewing, and message design, which are applicable across industries.

00:11:30–00:13:40
Advice for Students: Say Yes to Opportunities
Cassandra encourages students to get involved, try new things, and use experiences to build stories for interviews.

00:13:40–00:17:20
Classroom Activities That Build Career Readiness
Overview of real-world assignments like mock interviews, resume building, and persuasive speeches tailored to students’ career goals.

00:17:20–00:20:00
Final Advice: Practice, Network, and Tell Your Story
Cassandra emphasizes the importance of treating college as a networking opportunity and using storytelling to stand out professionally.

00:20:00–00:23:16
Resources and Closing
Information on how to learn more about the speech program at College of DuPage, and final thoughts from the host and guest.

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Transcript

0:01

Welcome to the Career Ready podcast. Learn about resumes, cover letters, LinkedIn, interviewing, and all things. You be career ready with the Career Services Center at College of DuPage. I'm your host, Pierre Michaels for today's episode. In addition to learning about resources and the job search process, important part of being career ready is understanding career paths to help us explore the impact of studying speech, communication and career readiness. I have Cassandra Wingert with me, who works as Assistant Professor of Speech Communication here at College of DuPage. Thank you so much for having me today. I'm delighted to be here. I'm excited to hear what you have to share. before we really get into all that, I just want to learn a little bit more about you. So can you provide a short introduction or as we like to call it, your elevator pitch? Absolutely. My name is Cassandra Wingert. I'm an assistant professor in the speech department here at College of DuPage. My classes focus on helping students become confident communicators, whether they're speaking in a classroom, in a boardroom, or on a stage. I am passionate about preparing students for real world success by combining theory, practice, and personal growth. And I believe that essential to success in every career is a strong foundational knowledge of communication skills. I think perhaps the best part of my job is engaging with students in the classroom and helping them discover their voice and their potential. There's a lot of great scenes you have in there that I think we'll be unpacking as we go along, but I just want to out that communication and really the, bringing out their potential, you know, I see that a lot with students and job seekers that I'm working with. Not always realizing, how much they have to offer when they're presenting that to the employer. So I'm glad that's part of what you're really trying to do here. And, you know, when we think of speech communication, it's a little bit different than some of the other programs that, we commonly talk about. As those CTE programs that are defined on a specific career path. But here, speech communication really isn't limited to a path. It probably leans towards some fields better than others. But can you share how the speech communication is a program or a class brings value to this career readiness or these different career fields? Definitely. So as I mentioned, I think speech communication is foundational to success because no matter your career path, whether it's going into business or healthcare, education, your ability to clearly express ideas and collaborate with others and adapt your message for different audiences is going to directly impact your success. So, for example, a nurse uses communication to comfort patients or collaborate with physicians and to advocate for patient needs. And so these are skills that students can sharpen in our interpersonal or our small group communication courses. A marketing professional needs to understand audience analysis and and message design and persuasive techniques, which are all core topics that students would learn about in public speaking or a persuasion class. Lawyers can benefit from debate skills and rhetorical analysis, and the ability to read nonverbal cues, which, again, are concepts that we explore in argumentation and nonverbal communication courses. So our classes teach students to listen actively, to think critically, and to speak persuasively, which are all skills that make people not only more hirable, but also more promotable. in the college level, we refer to CTE or programs quite a bit. Those career technical education, but speech communication. I'm trying to start a new scene here. The close the knowledge for all opportunities. Oh, cool. I like that. And, you know, that's what speech communication is and know. And I think we'll unpack this a little bit more, later on. But as a competency of employers or those skill sets they're always looking for communication is a huge one. Right. So as we think of speech communication, as one of these codes where I knowledge for all opportunities, how can you address the misconception that speech communication degrees are not practical or not marketable? Yeah. So that's to me, that is a mind blowing misconception because you just look at a handful of job postings. Without a doubt, you're going to find that communication is listed in nearly every one and likely as one of the top skills. So employers may not always search for speech communication communication majors by name, but they absolutely value what communication students bring to the workplace. The ability to lead meetings and deliver ideas with clarity or navigate tough conversations. Those are recognized as valuable skills, as what's the acronym you're using? K of knowledge for occupations. Yeah. So so those are absolutely those, knowledge for all occupations that, that students can, that they can get in the speech classroom. I think of communication as sort of the currency of the workplace. And by that I mean it's the medium through which almost everything of value is exchanged ideas, feedback, collaboration, leadership, trust. Just like currency, facilitates transactions in the economy, communication facilitates action in professional environments. So if you think about it, you can have the most innovative idea in the room. But if you can't express your idea clearly, it's never going to move forward. And if you are looking for promotions and partnerships and problem solving, all of these things rely on the way that we communicate with others. So in other words, communication translates your value to other people that you're working with. It makes your work visible and your leadership credible, and your impact actually measurable. And in a world where it is increasingly team based and cross-cultural and virtual, strong communication is not just nice as a skill to have, it's really becoming a professional must. In the speech department here at Cody, our faculty is providing students with opportunities to practice leading meetings and pitch ideas and navigate group conflict, so that our students are ready to handle these scenarios in the workplace and to do so with confidence. Yeah. And when I think back to my college experience, I dreaded my speech class. Now, I'm not a public speaker. Like here I am on a podcast. I do a lot of, presentations. But public speaking is never something that I'm comfortable with. But the idea of communication being present in everything else, in how speech communication isn't just that public speaking aspect, I think is an important thing for people to realize and to really understand the value from just working through that in the classroom. So as we think of working on this in the classroom, what skills or strengths do speech communication students, develop to prepare them for this next step? So speech communication students graduate with a robust set of skills that are highly valued in today's job market. And they come from experiences that are both practical and personal. Students can expect to learn soft skills, which are often referred to as people skills, and they develop them in every single class that they're in. So the soft skills can include things like empathy and emotional intelligence, which I learned through practicing active listening and perspective taking and say in interpersonal class, I focus substantially on helping my students gain confidence. I tell my students that it is the unspoken learning objective of this class, and it is built through a variety of activities, but especially prominent in speech delivery and through receiving constructive feedback from peers in general. Relationship building is, another part of the unspoken learning objective and a soft skill that students can expect to learn. Speech classrooms are uniquely interactive spaces where students bond through a sense of shared vulnerability. Because presenting and responding together creates this strong sense of community, and many students leave with real friendships and stronger social support networks, something that maybe they don't necessarily get in a lecture based course. But students can also expect to learn some of those harder skills like public speaking, presentation design, and interviewing techniques, which prepare them for the hiring process. In the real world, they'll learn about inflection and pacing and voice modulation, which are not just helpful for public speaking, but also also useful for careers in voiceover work or podcasting and broadcasting. Students learn about message adaptation for different audiences and platforms, which is a skill crucial for marketing, instructional design, social media content creation. And on the flip side, it helps students recognize and think critically about the messages that they receive, which is so essential in a world of influencers who are always trying to sell us something or some idea. And for anyone hoping to go into business or in a career field where they hope to rise in the corporate ladder having good communication skills such as the ability to facilitate and moderate conversation, are essential to leadership roles, so students get a variety of soft skills and hard skills. They also get transfer of transferable skills, which are bridge across a variety of careers and industries and allows students to really pivot easily between fields and areas of interest that they have. For example, persuasion and negotiation are helpful in sales and advocacy and legal fields. Team collaboration and decision making are necessary for project managers, event planners, and nurses. Feedback literacy is beneficial for educators, coaches, HR management. So whether students want to work in nonprofit, whether they want to go on to, become lawyers or managed teams, speech communication gives them the tools to connect, to lead and ultimately to thrive. So when you graduate college as a communication major or even just having taken a handful of speech courses throughout the college, journey, you don't just graduate with a degree, you ultimately are graduating with the ability to demonstrate these skills to employers. Yeah. And, you know, as you were starting off going through all those wonderful skill sets, you started off emphasizing some soft skills. But then later on, you mentioned this idea of the transferable skills, and I just want to emphasize that all of those are those transferable skills. You know, because it doesn't matter where you're at, that empathy. Yeah, it's a soft skills, but that will transfer with you to every setting. And yeah, to just hear you share some of those things. When I think of speech communication, obviously the communication piece is there. But then talking about that relationship building and really that teamwork that employers are valuing, you know, that is a huge component or that messaging and being able to critically think and evaluate that messaging, either in that development or the receiver of that I think is, great points to really be bringing to the forefront, because you're just naturally working on that through these programs, through these classes, but may not always realize how valuable it is or that feature or that next step. Absolutely. And so, kind of on that point, are there different experiences or opportunities you would recommend developing professionals seek out? Definitely. So first of all, I tell my students consistently to say yes and to get involved and to be open to trying new experiences. So especially working with college students, I tell them, you know, go study abroad, take a field experience class, join a club on campus, or volunteer for a local nonprofit. It is important to seek out roles that challenge your communication and challenge you to get outside your comfort zone. Because in a job interview, for example, you're probably going to be a little uncomfortable, and you're also going to need to have something to talk about. And so having these experiences not only sharpens your skills and demonstrate your willingness to take initiative, but it gives you something to discuss in a job interview. So there's nothing in particular that I say, this is what you need to do, go do this. But I tell my students just to say yes and to get involved and to try new things all the time. Anytime you have the opportunity to try something new, say yes and give it a whirl. Yeah, I think that's a great general rule of thumb for everyone students. And you know, you know, alumni listening you. But anyone out there looking for a job or planning our next step, saying yes to different opportunities just helps you develop and being involved can really challenge you to grow and apply some of these skill sets, sharpen them for the future. Absolutely. And it helps people gain new sets of skills. That then they they can find beneficial to a variety again of different fields. So just trying new things, I think is the best advice I can give students. So bringing it back to the classroom, knowing speech communication is this K.O. right now for all occupations, are there specific things you're doing in that program or in your classes, that are preparing students for the workforce? Yes. There's definitely things that, we're doing in the classroom that are beneficial to helping students prepare for the workforce. So many of the speech classes involve real world simulations like mock interviews, pitch presentations, group problem solving scenarios, and even client based projects. We also integrate a lot of AI tools and feedback software and reflective assignments to help students improve their delivery and to adapt their communication style. Our group communication classes emphasize things like collaboration, leadership, and conflict resolution, which directly mirrors workplace dynamics. Specifically, in my class, I teach a small group communication course and students can expect to build a professional resume and the resume if it's if they're applying for a position on a group project. So throughout the semester, my students are taking these assessments. They're just questionnaires, but they help the students identify their strengths as a group member. The skills that they have that can largely contribute to a group. And then toward the end of the semester, they practice message adaptation to craft a message that is going to get them hired as a group member. So it teaches them how to, leverage their skills and their strengths in a professional context and create this message that then is going to get them hired for the job. And then in my speech 1100 course, which is, the fundamentals of speech communication, the speeches are often focused on students career aspirations. So, for example, my students have to give an informative and a persuasive speech. In their informative speech, I might, assign them to research three possible career fields that they're interested in their dream job, a practical job, and maybe a backup plan. And then they inform the audience about those three careers that they researched in and are somewhat interested in. And then for the persuasive speech, they will find a job listing for an entry level position towards one of those careers and present a higher me speech. So certainly, some of the assignments are specifically tailored to get students thinking about the, the next steps where them and their career journeys. As a career professional, I am delighted to hear all these great things that you're incorporating, you know, because that really is what we're trying to do with students as we prepare them going out into that, job force, right? That career research, speech and just understanding those different options and what's out there and plan A, plan B, plan C is really helpful. But then that higher, higher me speech, I ask for your elevator pitch. That's basically, you know, that similar concept when you go into that interview and they're saying, tell me about yourself. If they have that, hire me speech ready, their set to really perform well in that interview, or at least stay off on the right foot. But then talking about that client project as something that they're working on, that could be a project experience that gets added to that resume. I then as you're having them work on that resumé, showing off those skill sets, adapting that to the correct setting. Again, those are things that we're trying to encourage every job seeker to do. So as I think about that messaging of the resume of your application. So for them to be working on that and right here in the classroom, I think is doing great things to prepare them for that next step. Thank you. It's definitely really important to me as an educator for my students to feel confident leaving my classroom like they have something in their back pocket, to propel them. And the next step of whatever their whether it's their academic journey or whether it's starting a career, I want them to feel like they have something tangible to present in an interview, that will help them land a job. And so whether that is being able to talk about a group project that they worked on, or having their elevator pitch prepared or just knowing how to adjust their resume, that's really important for me to know that my students are confident in that aspect. Yeah, so many great things there already. Just as we'll kind of wind down here, is there anything else you would recommend to students or young professionals as they're preparing for their future? Yeah. So I would tell students, to treat every class, club and conversation as practice ground. I think, students maybe don't necessarily recognize this, but college is a networking opportunity. Your professors aren't just there to fill your heads with knowledge. They're also possible partners to help guide your academic journey and to write letters of recommendation for your entry into the career world. So communication is a skill that you're going to refine over time. And that means that you have to practice it and practicing it in the college setting is a great way to learn and and to enhance your skill. And then ultimately, for young professionals and students alike, you need to be open to feedback and seek out mentors. And again, say yes to opportunities that push you outside your comfort zone. And also I'd say, again, don't underestimate the power of storytelling because we all have stories and and backgrounds and, and that those are powerful tools. So whether you're in writing a cover letter or in an interview or giving a presentation, being able to tell your story with confidence and clarity really is something that can set you apart. I know the listeners can't see me doing this, but as you're sharing this information, I'm just nodding along, agreeing with everything you're saying. But I'm going to emphasize that last piece of telling a story. You know, I like to say this a lot when working on a resume, a cover letter, or even a responses to the interview. Let's get forgotten. But a story will get you remembered. So to go out, make these stories, practice telling your stories. That's going to really help you stand out as you move forward. So last question here. How can interest listeners find out more about the program here at College? DuPage. So obviously the best place to start is on the speech communication page on the College of DuPage website. You'll find the course descriptions and faculty info and career pathways. But also the speech faculty here at Todd are phenomenal. And our, our doors are often and, and always open and engaging. So stopping by the the speech suite here on campus and again networking with the professors, introducing yourself, saying hello and asking to sit down and just talk about, you know, communication and the courses we love when students come in, and I personally would be happy to connect. So, students can reach out to me or to any other faculty member in the speech department for one on one advising or just an informal chat about what is possible. Yeah. I'll encourage our listeners to look at our show notes, and we have links and contact information in there. So we I keep it easy for you to go and make this connection to the speech program here at college. DuPage. So thank you, Cassandra, for sharing this great information. Thank you so much for having me. This was a lot of fun. I really enjoyed it. And with today's episode, there is no listener question. However, if you have a question, you can submit it to Career Podcast at Coda Edu or on social media at Cod Career Center. And you may hear answered in a future episode. Thanks to all our listeners, and special thanks to Cassandra Winger for joining the Career Writing Podcast. We hope you now have a better understanding of the value of studying speech communication and the impact it has. Preparing individuals for the workforce.