To honor the future leaders in the journalism industry, ASBPE partners with the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC) annually for the annual B2B student writing competition.

For 2017, Haley Smith won first place for her article, titled “Millennial Money Matters.” In turn, she will receive a $100 check from the ASBPE Foundation as well as a certificate. Smith says she chose to write about the financial issues faced by millennials because it is personal and relevant not only to herself, but to others from her same generation.

“It is often speculated that millennials are especially struggling when it comes to establishing financial stability,” Smith says. “I was interested in delving not only into the statistics, but also the lived experiences and struggles of this generation.”

Smith is a recent graduate of Northwestern University, where she majored in journalism with a minor in sociology and a certificate in integrated marketing communications. She served as the co-editor-in-chief of the Northwestern branch of Her Campus for a year-and-a-half. She also gained experience working for the Daily Northwestern in design and writing for North by Northwestern‘s entertainment section. She was also involved in Form & Function Marking Group as well as Kappa Alpha Theta sorority. During the summers, she gained experience in marketing by completing two separate summer internships at Facebook’s headquarters in Menlo Park, California. In September, she will be working for Facebook full-time.

This year’s second place winner is A. Cydney Hayes for her article, “Quarter Life,” about the challenges faced by millennials as they navigate personal relationships in college and are required to make many important life decisions.