By Whitney Clark

It’s graduation day. You hold your diploma, take your photo and shake a hand or two. You’ve waited your whole life for this moment, but now what?

Many students decide to work for a time and then attend graduate school. For many, this break may be a just few years long. But student Christel Swasey proves that even after waiting almost 20 years, graduate school is still an excellent option for learning.

Swasey, a Heber City, Utah resident, graduated from BYU with a bachelor’s degree in English. After eight years of teaching, writing for the Deseret News and starting her family, she decided to return to school.

“I didn’t have any idea how hard and rewarding it would be,” Swasey said. “I feel as though my window of the world is bigger because of the research I learned how to do, and because of the interesting ideas I was exposed to in this program.”

When Swasey first decided to pursue her master’s degree, she was interested in the English program. When she found out about the communications program, she said it just fit well, so she took that route instead.

Swasey began the program in 2007 and started writing her thesis on ethnographic literary journalism at the end of 2008. At the beginning of her graduate work, Swasey took a literary journalism course which sparked her interest on this topic.

“I found [this topic] fascinating and couldn’t stop studying, asking questions or reading examples of this type of work,” Swasey said.

She explains ethnographic literary journalism as a combination of journalism and anthropology. Some of the people who practice this intense type of journalism will spend up to six years writing about just one subject.

Swasey said it became an addicting subject. She found herself being a detective following a very sparse trail.

“There was basically no scholarship on this subject,” she said. “This is not an area that many people are interested in.”

Through her months of research, Swasey found that there had not been a real merger between the two subjects, yet they needed each other.

“Journalists need the credibility of anthropologists and anthropologists need the writing skills of journalists,” she said.

Swasey’s finished thesis is around 400 pages. Because of her great amount of research, she had the opportunity to present her work at the International Literary Journalism Association Conference in Evanston, Illinois, in May 2009.

Dr. Steven Thomsen, the graduate studies coordinator, said BYU’s graduate program in mass communications is not considered a pre-professional program, but rather, it is focused on research and theory.

“Students like Swasey take what they have learned throughout these research and theory classes and pick a thesis topic on their area of interest,” he said.

According to the BYU Communications Department Web site, there are 45 students in the masters of mass communications program working on theses. The average time for these students to complete the program is between two and three years.

Swasey has met this goal with a graduation date of August, 2009, so her hard work is mostly done. She said her time in the program was hard, but worth it.

“I feel so thankful to the communications program,” she said. “I feel it is a privilege and an honor to go to BYU.”

Though Swasey was interested in her topic, she still found it hard to find time to work. She has two children and was working while attending graduate school. She once took some advice from her mom, which helped her get through her busy schedule.

“I realized you can do anything you want in life,” she said, “but you can’t do everything you want.”

She had to find creative ways to get her work done. With a six year-old at home, she said it was difficult to find time to work. “I gave him six cards and he could give up a card every time he needed something,” she said. “When the cards were gone he had to stop asking me for things.”

During her education, her house was not perfectly clean or her hair perfectly done, but she was happy with her choice to attend graduate school. Swasey is not a traditional student, having entered the program at age 38. However, she feels that this was the right choice for her.

“I am more serious and interested in school now than I was in my undergrad,” she said. “I have had a lot of life experience that has helped me with my degree.”