The return of Transatlantic Storytelling is officially underway as 16 Ball State students have been selected to participate in the second iteration of the award-winning project with Cardiff Met University in Cardiff, Wales.
The highlight of the project will be a 12-day cultural immersion trip to Wales in late February and early March 2024. While on the ground, students will collaborate with their peers in the Cardiff Met Sport Broadcast course to produce feature stories, live sporting events, studio shows and podcasts.
Daulton Cox (Senior)
I am interested in this project for a multitude of reasons, with some going beyond the classroom and the advancement of my career. First and foremost, this trip is a wonderful opportunity for me to experience a culture/people that I have little prior knowledge of.
Secondly, this project will give me the opportunity to form life-long friendships with individuals that I otherwise would never have the opportunity to meet. This could come in the form of my peers at Cardiff Metropolitan University, who I will be working with to create feature stories. However, it could also come in the form of the athletes that I will produce stories about. I know from experience, after creating a feature about someone’s life, you become attached to the person in a way. Like their story somehow becomes part of your own. These are the kind of connections and enduring relationships this project will provide.
I am Daulton Cox, a senior at Ball State and future graduate student here, too. I got my start in the sports media industry in 2018, when I accepted an internship with a summer collegiate baseball team in Kokomo, Indiana. Although I did not expect it to lead to much, it began a lifelong love of working around sports.
Since then, I have returned for two more summers with the team, and have continued to work around live sporting events through my employment with Chirp Vision, the ISC Sports Network and Pacers Sport and Entertainment. I have also sharpened my feature storytelling skills while being at Ball State.
There are really two tangible goals that I hope to achieve through this project. Firstly, there are the friendships I will make while in Wales. Although friendships may not be “tangible”, the text messages with new acquaintances I meet on the trip will be tangible. The texts asking my peers for their opinion about a new piece I am working on. The texts to check in on the mental health of my peers. These are the tangible messages that will result from the new friendships formed while in Wales.
This project would allow me to sharpen my storytelling skills, while also refining my video production techniques. I would like to think that my 3-year career at Ball State has allowed me to grow a lot as a storyteller and content creator. However, this project allows me to grow more than anything that I could do within the confines of Muncie. It allows me to learn the techniques of an entirely different country and culture, which surely tell stories in a different way.
It will also allow me to work with more peers, who will help me to grow with their own abilities and skills. Transatlantic Storytelling will help me to refine the skills I already have, while also allowing me to gain new ones altogether. Thus, this project is invaluable to me for a multitude of reasons. I am looking forward to gaining a greater understanding of a different culture, create lifelong friendships, and also improve my storytelling techniques.
Daulton Cox