Whether working with international nonprofits or local businesses, experience design and management (ExDM) students at the BYU Marriott School of Business have the chance to apply their education through designing experiences. “It gives us a lot of confidence as we enter the workforce, because we know that our skills are valuable,” says ExDM student Claire Martin.
Increasing students’ confidence and preparing them to get jobs upon graduation are the goals of experiential learning, explains Mat Duerden, ExDM department chair. “I love to see the moment when students recognize that the content that they're learning in classes can solve problems in the real world for real companies,” he says.
Students were asked to apply their learning in a real way when Community Oncology Partners approached the ExDM department last year about designing better cancer treatment experiences for patients.
The students first decided to understand the patients’ worries before suggesting changes, explains ExDM student experience administrator Nicole Utley. They learned that while the scariest moment for cancer patients is walking into their first chemotherapy treatment, each patient held their own preferences for the process. The students “couldn’t design a one-size-fits-all center for cancer treatment,” Utley says, “so they actually designed an experience where cancer patients do a preference survey as soon as they start so they can have chemo according to their preferences.”
This client-based work has been present in the ExDM program for years, Duerden says. “We just had more and more faculty looking for ways to bring in outside projects, and it got to a point where we thought, ‘let’s make this more formal.’” The department introduced required ExDM capstone classes, he explains, to “make sure all the students are getting experiential opportunities with clients.”
In one assignment, Martin, a senior from Morrisville, North Carolina, worked alongside a local food bank. “I get to help a nonprofit in my area who’s doing some really good work that I can really resonate with,” she explains. Her service involved a process called “need finding,” in which she and the rest of her group led research observations, conducting interviews to further understand people’s needs and motivations.
ExDM students’ problem-solving methods vary depending on each company’s needs. During Luke Straddeck’s assignment, he worked with a company and analyzed over 1.5 million end-user responses. “The company was very explicit in telling me that I created value for them,” says Straddeck, an ExDM senior from Heber City, Utah. “This gives me confidence that I can take my experience design expertise and really make a difference in a company.”
Ambrie Kirkham, an ExDM student from Alpine, Utah, believes a commitment to service is a difference-maker across assignments. “We’re often asked to get on a customer level,” she explains, taking inspiration from her faith as she works on empathizing with others in designing experiences. “I feel like that’s what Christ does for me."
Applying her education to help real companies “allows me to develop as a Christlike leader because it gives me a really unique way of looking at problem-solving," Martin adds. “We can design solutions for people that uniquely benefit them.”