Calling all BYU humanities students: it is time to put that internship or study abroad experience in writing. Experience: Stories Beyond the Classroom is a new student journal seeking compelling, creative nonfiction essays (700–800 words) that reflect on a student’s experience outside the classroom. Successful submissions should be nuanced and rooted in narrative, as well as focused on a significant moment within a broader internship or study abroad experience.
Not only will selected stories be published in Experience this upcoming Winter Semester, but published writers will also earn $500!
In preparing submissions, students should consider how their expectations for internships or study abroad programs were challenged, how their studies in the College of Humanities informed their experience, or how a specific experience from their internship or study abroad influenced their awareness of important professional competencies. For example, was your in-class foreign language practice effective when you put it to use last summer in Siberia? What characters did you meet, and how did they change you? How did you respond to a challenge, complication, or ambiguity? Explore in-scene the insights you gleaned about synthesizing ideas, navigating cultures, or communicating effectively when you put these competencies to the test in the real world.
Please note that you should avoid surface-level “telling” and instead show how a specific experience signifies or expands on your course of study. For a great example of this kind of essay, refer to Brian Doyle’s essay, “The Meteorites,” available through the JSTOR database to BYU students at the HBLL.
All submissions are due by October 15, 2018.
For more about the official submission guidelines, see the following:
DEAN 9.6.19 Experience Journal Guidelines