Capstone Practicum Project – Reflections on Application (Part 1)

I am enrolled in Religion 333 – Teachings of the Living Prophets at BYU-Idaho. It is week 8. There are only 8 more weeks until graduation. Woohoo! This has been a very stressful semester and I have to admit that I am more than a little burnt out at this point. I love learning and I never thought I suffer severe burnout in this pursuit, but after the past 6 months, I can no longer deny it. The countdown to graduation is on! Of course, this means finishing up the last few projects for the semester including the Capstone Practicum project for this course.

Why a religion course?

Someone asked me recently why I am taking religion courses as part of my college studies. There is no easy answer to this question. Let me counter with, “why not?” If something interests you, study it. Even if it does not interest you but could add benefit to your life, study it.

If you know me, you know that religion is a part of who I am – my moral compass so to speak. It is a part of my character and what makes me the way I am. I am not perfect in my practice or application but it is the guide that I attempt to use to make me a better person. Let’s not confuse efforts with results.

If you are not familiar with BYU-Idaho, it is a religious institution. A university built on the foundation of religious instruction, implementation, and more. Religious studies are a part of the core curriculum at BYU-Idaho. This is common with most religious-affiliated colleges and universities). There are 8 religion classes to complete a Bachelor’s degree at BYU-Idaho. Yes, you read that correctly, 8 classes at 2 credit hours each.

I do not necessarily like that. It feels forced. I have yet to take a religion course that I hated. I’ve enjoyed every one I’ve taken through BYU Pathway Worldwide, BYU-Idaho, and CES Institute of Religion. I may not begin thrilled about these classes, but I have come to enjoy the topics and have enjoyed the reflection.

My choice would be to take these through the CES Institute of Religion because I think that they are less stressful overall. Unfortunately, while the course credit does transfer to BYU-Idaho, it does not transfer in as upper-division credits. It counts as regular religion or elective credits.

The Race to Graduation

During the 2024 Winter semester, I realized I was very close to graduating. At this point, I was still thinking that it was about 1 year away at the rate that I was completing classes. I received a “certificate waiver” after a few interactions with my academic advisor – back and forth. If I took this, it would leave me with only needing to complete 8 upper-division credits. Credits, not classes. These certificates are the areas of emphasis or focal areas of study in the BYU-Idaho degree paths – they shape the degrees into something more personalized and custom than traditional degrees. Typically 3 certificates required for a Bachelor’s degree. I completed my second at the end of Winter 2024 (January-April).

Because I transferred into the university with an Associate of Arts Degree and a metric crap-ton of university credits I was eligible for a waiver of one certificate. I opted to take this. Thus the race to graduation began. I scrambled to get into a block class (half-semester course) during the second half of the Winter 2024 semester and registered for my last credits for Spring 2024 (occurring now). The countdown started!

A religion course was not on the radar. I was looking at other upper-division credits. However, due to recent university changes, some of those upper-division courses without prerequisite requirements were not available to me. I did not want to delay graduation any longer than necessary – if possible. Burnout had already set in at this point. I was willing to take just about anything and this particular religion course was upper-division and would get me 2 credits closer to completion.

And that’s what leads us to this post…

The Capstone Practicum Project

All religion courses at BYU-Idaho have a Capstone Practicum Project to complete during the semester. These are required through the CES Institute of Religion as well, but they are not as big or extensive – more a lengthy, detailed, and written reflection of the course. Some of the classes have a common project. You could complete the same project multiple times if you take more than one class with the same project type.

Each of these projects has an application portion. There is almost always a reflection of some sort. It goes hand in hand – creates synergy so to speak. This application phase is multiple weeks long and is intended to help stretch us spiritually in the application of the topic selected. It is not a bad project, but sometimes they can be frustrating especially when you have had a rough go for several months. Mindset matters. Unfortunately, my mindset has not been in the right place for months.

The goal is to use this project to help get that back on track…

Project Requirements – Basically

The project for this course is not small – it is rather lengthy but mostly because it takes a lot of time to read or watch all of the speeches (or talks). A lot of time! This project focuses on 8 topics – 5 assigned to us and 3 of our choice.

For each topic, we were to find 10 quotes from a “living” prophet or apostle (high leadership) of the church. If you do the math, you realize that this is 80 different quotes. That is a lot! Each topic also has a brief reflection on how we feel about the topic.

We pick a single topic to “apply” to our life in some way for this capstone practicum project during week 8 of a 16-week course. At the end of the semester, we have studied and reflected on these topics – a lot.

Please note that these Capstone Practicum projects are not exclusive to or limited to the religion courses. They are not. I have had to complete projects like this for other courses as well. They may be hidden under another title in some classes, but at the end of the day, they are an application of what you are learning.

Struggling with Capstone Practicum Project – Application Phase

I am not going to lie, I am struggling with the application portion of the project. I simply do not want to do it! Remember the wrong mindset my brain is stuck in? Yes, it is causing me all sorts of grief.

This application is a hugely open portion of the project with very little direction or instruction, but it is a big part of the project. This lack of clear direction frustrates me to no end but it is commonplace at BYU-Idaho. Not for the faint of heart.

Assigned Capstone Practicum Topics

1. Our Divine Identity
2. The Power of Jesus Christ and Your Covenants
3. Let God Prevail & Follow His Prophets
4. Teaching Truth with Love
5. Taking Charge of Your Testimony

Personal Capstone Practicum Topics

6. The Importance of Lifelong Learning and Education
7. Finding Peace, Joy, and Happiness in Grief and Tribulations
8. Prudent, Wise, and Productive Use of Your Time

The question became, how do I choose just one of these topics to apply to my life in some random way? How do you get past the time limitations of less than 4 hours spread across 6 weeks and truly and deeply dive into the topic while remaining an effective use of your time? It has taken me that long to come up with an inkling of an idea that does not make me want to cry and scream about the insanity of it all.

There is overlap between the topics in my opinion. Not only that, but the topics can be interdependent – sharing a relationship or link of some sort.

Topic of Focus for Application

Can you apply just one topic? Yes.

However, I have found that focusing on one has been hard because if I do that, I am by default applying more than one topic to my life in some fashion. This has brought me all sorts of grief the past week. I am trying to reduce my stress. I am trying to do less and accomplish just as much. There is a reason that I am a 4.0 student during this attempt to finish my Bachelor’s degree. I set the goal and I am going to accomplish it!

But…

How can one apply the “Importance of Lifelong Learning and Education” in exclusion? It requires multiple topics to fully accomplish. For example “Prudent, Wise, and Productive Use of Our Time” is going to help me accomplish the other. If I go with “Finding Peace, Joy, and Happiness in Grief and Tribulations,” the questions become where do you find these things and what do you need to do to obtain them? I find joy in learning. It makes me happy. It helps me focus on things other than my grief. Also, grieving does not have a timetable, but it can interfere with our use of time thus the topic of the wise use of time becomes necessary again.

My application focus is going to be primarily on the topic “Importance of Lifelong Learning and Education.” It seems prudent and wise right now. No, I will not keep it in exclusion from the other topics. I think they are all important to this topic in some ways even if some are remotely related on the surface.

Starting the Application

I am not certain how I am going to apply this, but I am going to try my hardest to not spend all my spare hours (not many these days) on this project.

As such, I am going to focus on my learning philosophy and reflect on why it has fueled me and my desire for constant learning – every single day.

I had an excellent example of a lifelong learner growing up – my maternal grandfather. I remember as a high school student very fondly, and with deep pride in my soul knowing that Grandpa Adams was going to school. He was carpooling to the local community college with my older sister (a recent high school grad) to take classes. She was studying fashion design. He was studying computers and computer programming. To this day, this memory fills my heart with gladness and brings the happy tears welling up in my eyes. Oh, how I miss him! (And there we are with the joy and happiness topic.)

Grandpa Adams used to tell us, “If you are not learning something new every day, you are not truly living.”

What a profound thought. Am I truly living? What can I do to improve this? The most important question I ask myself most days is, did I learn something new today? That is just who I am.

Some weeks, this can be profound learning. Other weeks are like this one, filled with doubt and confusion and just mustering the desire to push through…

This week’s learning…

Hard things and challenges make us stronger. This isn’t a huge learning, but it is a rehashing. I can do hard things. Just because something looks easy does not mean that it is easy.

We can take charge and we can little by little take charge of the emotional and spiritual disruptions and work to put ourselves in a different and better place. It may not be easy. Somedays it will be a struggle and often getting out of bed and putting clothes on are the only accomplishments. When we are struggling we should not minimize or negate these “wins” because some days they truly are wins. Take the small victories. Take the win.

In this process, we build a little more of a foundation to accomplish so much more. We start to shift our mindset…