https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rlHAvweZzAc
Welcome to our Student Spotlight! We regularly highlight current undergraduate and graduate students in the Department of Communication to showcase their unique endeavors and contributions to our department, campus community and the world.
Driven. Compassionate. Authentic.
These three words only begin to describe the dynamic Malaysia Barr, a senior Communication major (English minor), who hails from Batesburg-Leesville, South Carolina. Malaysia majored in Communication because she is an aspiring journalist. She loves to write, but more importantly, loves to tell and hear other people’s stories. In her own words, she says: “I want to tell good news in a world that has so much bad.”
Continue reading to learn more about her involvement on campus, experience with the DIVE IN program, and her advice to college freshmen!
Around campus, Malaysia’s maintained involvement with different clubs and organizations for the last four years. CONNECTIONS Peer Mentoring Program aims to support students through peer mentoring and a unique living-learning community. This program for historically underrepresented students pairs first-years with an upperclassman leader who serves as a mentor and role model. For her senior year, Malaysia is serving CONNECTIONS as a senior peer mentor. Malaysia also serves as the chaplain of the Clemson University Gospel Choir, a student run organization that aims to minister through music. Additionally, Malaysia works with the Clemson REACH Program which aims to tell the stories of the important work Clemson University does in the field of agriculture. Links for CONNECTIONS, Clemson University Gospel Choir, and The REACH Program are embedded and provided below.
Malaysia had the opportunity earlier this summer to participate in the Erwin Center for Brand Communication’s . This weeklong program is an immersive experience for college students interested in the field of brand communications. DIVE IN is dedicated to advancing diversity in brand communications by enhancing skills and abilities of future brand leaders. Malaysia worked on how to better brand her own podcast called “The 20 Something Christian in 2020.” Malaysia launched her podcast a few weeks before the program, so DIVE IN helped her figure out how to market her new brand. She explained how the program improved her ability to pitch her podcast to people and “completely changed how she views the marketing program.” In light of learning more about her own brand, Malaysia’s favorite day of the program was hearing about the work fellow students had been doing the past week. She explained how cool it was to see how everyone put a little piece of themselves in their own project.
As mentioned above, Malaysia has started her own podcast called “The 20 Something Christian in 2020.” She explained how 2020 was a hard year for everyone and how she feels that many things that we saw as normal have now shifted. One of the biggest shifts that have taken place in her own life is the atmosphere of the church. She believes that there need to be more real conversations and bigger space for grace, so she is using her podcast to do just that. Through her podcast, Malaysia is touching on real conversations and real experiences in order to create a space where young Christians feel welcomed, heard, and even inspired to learn more about the gospel. “Life doesn’t have limits, so nothing is off limits,” she says. Her podcast can be found on anchor.fm/thetwentysomething where it provides all of the streaming sites available.
Throughout her time at Clemson University, Malaysia has realized that while college comes with a lot of freedom, it also comes with a lot of pressures. This is why Malaysia’s advice to all incoming Freshman is to “be your authentic self.” Clemson University provides a space for all types of people and hundreds of different ways to express yourself. She believes that the best advice anyone can hear is that what’s meant for you will come to you as long as you remain true to yourself.
In addition to reading contemporary Christian fiction and binge watching the television show Criminal Minds, Malaysia will be spending the rest of her summer planning a family trip for a week in July, working at a summer camp, and capturing interesting stories that she is surrounded by for her future newsreel.
Learn more about the program’s Malaysia is involved with by clicking the links below:
CONNECTIONS: https://www.clemson.edu/studentaffairs/case/connections/index.html
Clemson University Gospel Choir: https://sites.google.com/a/g.clemson.edu/cugc/?fbclid=IwAR15cRSu-mPXRB3orj4Rf_uUizfrRvcvsnLQHrAynmPLj3yLbtaRpvVwZbY
Erwin Center’s DIVE IN Brand Academy: https://www.clemson.edu/centers-institutes/erwin/dive-in/index.html
“The 20 Something Year Old Christian in 2020” Podcast: www.anchor.fm/thetwentysomething
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