Communication Careers Journal

The first day of class- April 21, 2016

The first day of class sure was early. I ’ve decided to be super diligent with my GRAD Plan and Writing Workshops because I know that the end of the Semester will be much busier than the first part. As we learned about the Syllabus I realized how grateful I am to be taking this class early while I am still in the decision-making process of what I would like to choose for my Communications emphasis. Right now I know that I want to work with people and I know I want to write. Some people came by from the Scroll and tried to persuade us to join! As they talked it up with the best of their abilities I felt like it was something I really wanted to explore so I dropped my multiple credit science class for a 1 credit practicum class that will be much more time consuming but oh man, I am ready for The Scroll adventure.

Brother John Thompson (Student Media Newsroom Manager)- April 28, 2016 

I could tell from listening to Brother Thompson that he has some serious experience, he is very wise. He is the guy who started I-Comm, he worked in Arizona, and also for Fox13 news. He really emphasized the importance of having hands-on experience with the major that we are working with, which helped me to understand that I really am on the right path by joining Scroll and being part of I-comm. Brother Thompson taught us what the Soapbox agency was and how those involved get to work with real clients! I think that the Soapbox agency is something that I will definitely consider being a part of in the future.

Brother Lane Williams- May 5, 2016

I could tell just from listening that Brother Williams has a passion for writing. He told us that writing should be a joy. He gave five points on how to become a better writer which I think were fantastic. First of all, to become a better writer he said that we need to pay attention to the writing around us. Second, we should become a consumer of news by being aware, he encouraged us to get the Wall Street Journal app on our devices because we get it for being students here at BYU-Idaho.

Brother Williams is very informed because he himself is a consumer of news. Third, he gave an interesting suggestion of starting a Blog to write about each week, this is something I will definitely consider to add to my WordPress blog. He asked us to consider journalism fourth, which I am doing. Journalism is an awesome thing because it helps people to make good decisions.

The final thing that Brother Williams talked about was how right now an incredible time of change is happening especially when it comes to sharing information. He showed examples of cool websites which all told their story in a way that was fantastic whether that was through Photographs, words, animations, or other elements it was neat. Brother Williams ended with encouraging us to sweep the earth with a flood through gospel messages. As a Communications Student at BYU-Idaho, it is important that I am authentic and that I edify and uplift others through technology.

Brother Mawlam – May 12, 2016

Brother Mawlam was very awake for a class that happens at seven o’clock in the morning! I enjoyed his lecture very much and his accent was fantastic. Coming to Rexburg, ID all the way from the United Kingdom, he is very well educated and experienced in all things video related. Mawlam teaches Video& Film Production Essentials, Media Business Ownership and Mass Media and Society. He explained to us how Hollywood is hard to get into and that if one does make it up there, that it will most likely be through unions and one will be pretty fixed in their discipline. He showed us some clips and explained some brief elements of video creation that were good basics for us to know about. I learned from him how important it is to be organized and that technology is making it so that projects that used to require an army of workers can be accomplished with a select few individuals. He encouraged us to get a paid internship and find something that we can do to help people. This lecture was exciting for me to hear.

Caryn Esplin -May 19, 2016

Sister Esplin was a pleasure to listen to. She thanked the young man who volunteered for the prayer for inviting the Spirit to be with us and explained that she encouraged us that if we were to feel any promptings through her lecture, that we would act upon them. Sister Esplin’s lecture was all about Visual Communication. She told us to pray for the right path, have timing and connections, make it happen, customize our resumes and letters, figure out our internships, network, and have faith. Visual Communication is a broad spectrum including websites, Adobe skills, graphic designing, photography and editing and much much more. Sister Esplin showed us that there is so much that can happen with it! The biggest thing I learned from her was how important it is to pray about every step that we are taking at this time in our lives.

Brother H – May 26, 2016

Advertising has many different components such as ads, logos, commercials, research, persuasion, and timing just to name a few. He told us about super bowl statistics these days and how depending on the age of the viewer they are most likely only watching the event for commercials. Some specific types of advertising can be identified by the following: Print Ads, Brochures, direct mail (which apparently increases online shopping), websites, billboards, the internet in general, social media, and more. Brother H encouraged each of us as student’s to find our passion in life and mentioned that advertising is more than video. I personally enjoyed the media clips that he showed to us as examples of advertising, too bad that it was 7:00am class and not many chuckles happened when the baby from the super bowl commercial wanted some Doritos.

 

“The more you trust and rely upon the Spirit, the greater your capacity to create. That is your opportunity in this life and your destiny in the life to come.”

—Dieter F. Uchtdorf, “Happiness, Your Heritage,” Nov. 2008 General Conference

Brother Ward Hicks – June 2, 2016

Brother Hicks was really fun to listen to, he helped me to understand public relations in an entirely different light from what I had previously known. Brother Hicks moved to Idaho from Arizona and has worked for a mining company. Brother Hicks explained that the purpose of public relations is to educate people and help individuals understand what the truth is. A definition he wrote on the board said this “Public Relations is a planned process to influence public opinion.” Brother Hicks has had a number of really neat experiences where he has had the opportunity to share, teach and educate people truths. Hicks told us about the importance of truth and how individuals in Public Relations need to listen to what the public has to say. He explained that PR includes writing, collaborating information together, writing speeches sometimes, editing, and research. He said that there are no perfect people and no perfect companies in this world.

Andra Hansen –  June 9, 2016

I had Sister Hansen for my teacher in the Fall semester of 2015 and I am so grateful I did because she honestly has such an inspiring way of looking at life. She talked to us about Organizational Communication and Advocacy. We learned from her that the term advocacy refers to the act of pleading for, supporting, or recommending a cause of others. Something I thought was neat that we talked about was being able to communicate with those who may specialize in a different field, with their own jargon, that is definitely a skill set that I would like to develop and I know I can simply from learning from others about what they are studying. Hansen discussed how with organizational communication social issues are able to be brought to light and I really like how this deals with change. Hansen is a very passionate person and the way she expresses her thoughts both through speaking and writing has made me see how much she cares about individuals deeply. Ever since she was my teacher I have been interested and as of today I officially changed my emphasis is Organizational Communication because of the leadership possibilities, the government involvement, and the implementation of changes in the world.

Tyler Christensen –  June 16, 2016

It was awesome to hear from a BYU-Idaho alumni speak to us about the importance of Graduation Planning. Brother Christensen told us a little bit about his college experience and how he was a student during the big transition from Ricks College to Brigham Young University – Idaho. He explained to us that we each need 120 credits to graduate and that we should try our best to get that amount of credits. Brother Christensen told us that Graduation Plans are important but only if we stick to them and use it. He cautioned us about our financial aid situations and to know that we should really keep up on financial aid emails and such and that we should make sure to truly understand what is going on because there have been situations in the past where students lose their financial aid because of excess credits. Brother Christensen also gave us a sneak preview of our universities new Graduation Planner System titled “iplan” which has been implemented already with English Majors and soon will be implemented with other Majors. As a student here at this university it was really neat to hear about these things and be reminded of the miracles we are part of each day at BYU-Idaho, there have been spectacular things occur here in the past ten or eleven years.

Senior Showcase

Thursday, June 23rd, 2016 was BYU-Idaho’s Senior Showcase for the Communications Department. I had the opportunity to walk over with some friends and co-writers from the BYU-Idaho Scroll that I write with and once we got there I talked to so many neat people and learned some things that help me with the path I am choosing to go down in terms of my degree and emphasis.

First of all, I talked to this smiling bubbly girl about her Senior Project, this gal was so kind to me and explained that for her project she composed a series of positive podcasts or speeches for college-aged students. She had done much research and was very excited about this. I loved talking to her about how she wants to make a difference and only after learned that she is majoring in Organizational Communications and Advocacy as well, she helped me understand that there is much more to this emphasis than I understand.

That is exactly what I want to do. I also was able to see the table of a girl who took some lovely photographs of LDS Temples and she compiled them into a calendar for part of her projects, some guys explained to me a little bit about their table as they are aspiring cinematographers, I am definitely interested in that type of thing so that was very neat to see. I met a girl who’s project was this running event that I actually had the opportunity to participate in at the beginning of this month called the ‘Temple to Temple’ Relay Race which was a race composed of teams where runners each run a different leg of the race (basically a mini version of a series of races known as Ragnar). This ‘Temple to Temple’ Relay race required a ton of effort but they accomplished it very well.

The Communications Senior Showcase definitely got the gears turning in my head about what I would like to do in school, though this is only my second semester I know it definitely does not hurt to get involved with practicums and other skill-building experiences. I am excited to see what is to come in my life with everything going on!

Brother Shane Cole – June 30, 2016

This past week we had an interesting discussion on the topic of ethics with Brother Cole. Ethics has to do with what is right and wrong and what is valued. We started the conversation discussed what sorts of things each of us value. I thought about myself as an individual and decided that some of the things that I value very much are good health, hard work, Heavenly Father, Jesus Christ, family, education, and social interaction. Throughout the discussion, we went through topics such as the Founding Fathers of the United States, Anne’s Law, plagiarism, Title right 17, Public domain and copyright. I learned that the term ‘automatic’ copyright refers to the owner having the right to reproduce, distribute, perform publicly, derivative works and moral rights. I learned that when understanding ‘fair use’ there needs to be a level of consideration in the purpose of why this material is being used whether that is for teaching, research, scholarships, criticism, parodies, commenting, news reporting, nonprofit organizations, educational institutions, restricted access and so on. I also learned that internet service providers are not responsible for what their users do. We also watched a pretty interesting collaboration video that was explaining about copyright made up from clips from Disney films.

Shelia Wener – July 7, 2016

Thursday morning we had a presentation about the importance of internships. We discussed the fact that internships are important because they can help us determine or decide if we are on the right path with our major, they can allow us to stand out in the future when we are applying for jobs. They build up our experiences in the workplace as well. We talked about how Heavenly Father wants us to be successful and how there are both paid and unpaid internships. We discussed BYU-Idaho’s “career navigator” website and how it is important to learn how to navigate that page. Here at this university there are many resources and ways to network and get involved as well. Anybody you have ever met can be a potential networking opportunity.