Nicole Utley keeps her office stocked with herbal teas and Pop-Tarts. Whenever she’s in the office, students in the experience design and management (ExDM) program can stop by for a treat and to chat. As the ExDM student experience administrator, Utley views “tea and tarts” as a way to help students develop clarity, competence, and confidence: clarity to see what’s possible, competence in their field of study, and confidence to take it out into the world.
Utley explains that because the ExDM program in the BYU Marriott School of Business provides students with tools that they can take into any industry, they sometimes struggle when they don’t know exactly what they want to do with those tools. “Clarity for me is introducing them to as many possibilities as I can,” she says. “If you can see it, you can be it.”
To help students see possible career paths, Utley works as a “recruiting maniac” to connect companies with the program so ExDM students can work on real problems for clients. “The light bulb turns on for students when people outside of school see them at work,” Utley says. “Working with clients takes experience design from being this ethereal subject that they’re learning to something real and exciting.” Over the past year, ExDM students participated in more than 60 projects for 47 clients.
Excitement about possibilities isn’t the only thing that students gain as they work with professionals, Utley says. “Competence comes from just getting the reps in,” she explains. “We want our students to feel capable and have both the tools and the know-how to use them.”
Even though students have opportunities to gain experience through the ExDM program, Utley still encourages them to proactively look for opportunities in areas they’re passionate about. “Students gain so much clarity, competence, and confidence from just experimenting,” she says.
Utley saw for herself the impact of experimenting before she came to BYU Marriott. In February 2020, Utley quit her job as an advertising account manager and was trying to find work in the events world. A friend asked her to volunteer at the 2020 Sego awards—a Utah-based awards program that recognizes female founders and CEOs—and she jumped at the chance, even though it meant stapling pinecones onto the front of a stage for a few hours.
As she worked to add flair to the outdoor stage, she connected with people who became mentors. “Just putting myself into the ring opened all these doors with people that ended up changing my life,” Utley says.
Soon, Utley went from volunteering at events to running them herself and tailoring them to the needs she saw around her. “I loved the idea that you can start with the end in mind and build events to serve people,” she says. “There’s a lot of confidence that comes when I get outside myself and focus on the people that I’m serving.”
She sees that now as she works with ExDM students. “In this job, there are some things that I might not know how to do,” she says, “but I’m so driven to figure it out because I can see the impact that it’s going to have on students.”
Even with the confidence she’s developed from getting outside herself, Utley explains she sometimes wishes she could redo things from the past. However, she’s learned that mistakes bring growth, and she hopes that her students can learn the same. “I tell students that this time in life is the incubator; it’s okay to experiment,” Utley says. “I encourage students to take advantage of every opportunity, because it’s a great time to try and fail and learn and explore.”