Eric Rodriguez is the voice of The Millennial View here at Management Excellence. You can follow Eric on Twitter @mvieweric for more on the millennial perspective.

With spring break currently underway my office has been getting an influx of students from other colleges and universities who want to take summer classes at the community college. If you want to know one of the classes students are most likely to enroll in this summer it’s the dreaded speech class.

Last week a Millennial summed up the phenomenon of students taking speech classes in the summer when she said, “A community college’s speech class is short in the summer, most universities accept it, speech sucks, students hate it, and we’ll probably never use it again.”

These were strong words and it’s understandable why a speech class isn’t a student’s most pleasant experience in college. In speech students have to stand in front of their peers, be judged by an instructor, and some stare and clutch their cue cards hanging on for dear life hoping they won’t screw up.

Before I go any further I want to establish that this is not a post on how to prepare for a speech. There are many great articles out there for that, but the purpose of this post is to convince Millennials and others that public speaking serves a great purpose and doesn’t… suck.

One reason why public speaking is great is because it gives an opportunity for a young professional to shine. A speaker has the attention of everyone in the room, they can communicate clearly about a topic without interruption, and great speeches can make a speaker get noticed by people in the workplace who can advance a career.

But, some people will never speak in public because they’re scared of an audience.

This fear is irrational – maybe the phobia is rooted in a bad experience, an annoying classmate, or a rude teacher. If an aspiring speaker is still hung up about this, it’s time to move on and realize that was then and this is now.

The audience wants you to succeed. The audience is there to hear you, listen to your ideas, they’re giving you their time, and that is one of the highest honors anyone can receive.

There’s also something rewarding about sharing a laugh with a crowd, seeing some heads nodding in agreement with an idea, or having people smile in your direction.

Public speaking can be a beautiful thing, but the Millennial generation and others need to give it a chance.

It’s puzzling that Gen Y possesses so many new and valuable skills, but when it comes to public speaking some of them shy away. This is a mistake, public speaking is something that looks hard, but with enough practice it becomes easier and Millennials will gain a skill that’s immensely valuable, if they try it.

A colleague once told me that the most successful people she knew were professionals who were great public speakers because they would get noticed by management for their ability to communicate. It wasn’t a surprise for her when she saw these speakers get promoted or when they were asked to talk to clients for a business deal.

When an individual starts developing a talent for public speaking it becomes less strenuous, the butterflies disappear a little, and soon an aspiring speaker will be able to step in front of a crowd effortlessly and talk about a topic with ease. When this happens people realize that public speaking doesn’t suck, it may even be, dare I say it?

Fun.