During their college years, young adults face a lot of important, life-altering decisions: Where should I go to school? Where should I live? What do I want to do with my life? Should I get married?
Sometimes, these questions are more of a spiritual nature: Is there a God? What happens after this life? What is my purpose?
Eleven students from the School of Communications recently spent several weeks interviewing young adults across the nation about the challenges they face in answering these kinds of questions. They also explored where young adults go to find their answers and the journey they take to get there.
Titled “If Any of You Lack Wisdom,” the project was published in connection with the 200th anniversary of the “First Vision,” an important event within the history of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
It was a collaborative effort across three of the four sequences within the School: journalism, advertising, and public relations. Students and faculty from each sequence began planning the project in September 2019. Five months later, in February 2020, a portion of the team traveled to Palmyra, New York, to conduct interviews with young adults there. They also traveled to New York City; State College, Pennsylvania; and Cleveland, Ohio, near Kirtland, another area of historical significance for the Church.
Later that month, another team traveled to Church history sites in Missouri and Nebraska to tell the stories of young adults in those areas. Finally, students conducted similar interviews with young adults in London, England. The end result of all these interviews is a series of multimedia stories published on the Daily Universe site over the course of several weeks.
One innovative aspect of this project was the opportunity it provided students from different areas of the School to collaborate. They not only brought their own expertise to the experience, but they were also able to learn new skills (interviewing, video editing, multimedia storytelling) they may not have picked up otherwise.
“This was an incredible project to work on. It was a lot of work, but some of the most fulfilling work I’ve done here at BYU,” said Caroline Richards, a public relations student from Cedar Hills, Utah.
The project also instilled a sense of confidence and satisfaction within students like Morgan Reis, a 24-year-old journalism student from Concord, California.
“I realized that I am a capable communications professional, and I can succeed outside the classroom in my field of study,” she said.
As with any innovative collaboration, there were challenges as well, including coordinating meeting times among students with very different schedules. Because they were coming from different sequences, the students didn’t always see each other in classes and had to arrange to meet outside of regular school hours, often nights and weekends.
Also, establishing a unified vision took time as each of the students and faculty members had different ideas for the direction of project. Often these ideas were based on students’ experience within their focus of study (journalism, public relations, or advertising). But for Kalicia Bateman, a public relations student from Vancouver, Canada, this refining process, while frustrating at times, was also a large part of the educational value.
“I learned that most of the time, projects like this grow and transform as we go along, and they take shape as we work and create, and that is so cool!” she said. “It taught me that there is beauty in having a vision, but that there is also beauty in allowing that vision to evolve and take shape over time.”
Another unique feature of this project was that it provided students an opportunity to not just grow professionally, but personally as well.
“Being able to talk with young adults from across the country and even the world has helped me feel like I’m not alone and that God loves all of us, regardless of our personal circumstances,” said Sydnee Gonzales, a journalism student from Queen Creek, Arizona.
These students were drawn to participate because they wanted to explore the journey their peers take in seeking out answers to important questions and challenges in their lives. What the students didn’t necessarily anticipate was how this experience would take them on their own introspective journey.
“I knew the project was meant to inspire other young people around the world, but I couldn’t have imagined the spiritual impact it would have on me,” said Sydney Anderson, a public relations student from St. George, Utah.
Overall, the project provided a wealth of experience and lifelong learning for these students. It also illustrated the value and educational benefit of collaboration across various fields of mass communication. Hopefully, it is just the beginning of many successful collaborations in the future.
