My first key insight was that creativity expands beyond arts, layouts and designs as it spills into data reports and infographics as well. The concept of multidimensional creativity is what gives us the ability to create effective communication. Hand-in-hand with communication comes along the circulation and presentation of information. From the combination of a research class and a public opinion class, I was led to my first post-grad work opportunity and my second key insight – information is out there, information is accessible, but we need information to be better circulated and presented. I want to be a part of wide-spreading accurate information.

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In my information science course, Research Methods, I learned the research process from step one of identifying the problem, through the last step of writing a communication report. Literature review is one of the many steps in the research process. Through literature review I found a love for reading academic journals or scholarly articles – they were challenging but so full of information that I would have otherwise never known. I realized it takes a special type of person to admit they love reading academics, in which I realized the information I was uncovering was most likely not widely known.

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We chose our own research topics, so I specifically was reading case studies on CBD (cannabidiol) as my proposal revolved around using CBD as a stress/anxiety alleviate or adjunct (see artifact I). My thought in selecting this topic came from a personal experience of being prescribed opioids amongst other medications to treat the mental illness of anxiety and depression. Additionally, there had been extra attention on the opioid problem from 2018. Opioids have a bad rep and have extremely severe consequences from addiction to overdoes, yet CBD (a natural remedy) has none of these consequences. I am thinking, why do we not get CBD prescriptions, why are we not given the option to choose something less harmful, why is this not talked about more? Through my research, I realized the information on CBD treatment is not as widely or clearly presented as the information surrounding opioids. I found myself eager to share my findings from the scholarly articles and I was excited to have the chance to propose further research. I felt this knowledge could help others facing the difficulties with anxiety and how to treat it; I felt this is certainly an information need.

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At the time of building my research skills and learning of my eagerness to share and spread information, I was also enrolled in Public Opinion and Persuasion. I learned the history of polls, journalism and how information has circulated from way back when it was word-of-mouth to traditional media outlets to present day social media platforms. This class fell in-line with the time of heavy campaigns for the 2020 election, which made the material all the more relevant. We heavily covered topics from propaganda to “fake news” and analyzed how these ideas were displayed through the 2020 campaigns. We studied demographic trends, socialization learning and several theories that we were able to connect with 2020 election predictions.

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Through this class, I felt as if I were behind the scenes of the election itself. I remember watching the results with my dad and sharing my predictions based off what I was learning in class and he responded with “well, it all just makes too much sense when you put it that way.” In that moment, I knew what I was being taught in class was not common public knowledge. I found myself in another thought of we should know these things as a society, why do we not know these things. The knowledge I had obtained through articles, studies, etc. in this class were more relevant than ever and it felt as if I was the only one who knew this information. It was towards the end of the class that our assignment asked us to review demographic/groups trends and to analyze the election (see artifact II) and another that had us analyze propaganda when I knew I wanted to make a difference in sharing information. Especially information that would better our society by simply helping our public to be accurately informed before making decisions that affect us as a country.