A missionary couple serving in Kiribati, along with 300 missionaries from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints flew home on April 4 from the South Pacific island. They knew they needed to go home even though they didn’t want to, explained the couple.

By Geena DeMaio

With election day approaching on Nov. 3, there will be college students voting for the first time in the U.S. general election. Based on an online survey done on Instagram, the majority of students commented that the voting process was confusing, especially those living away from home in a different state for college.

To help the United Nations with their poverty, climate change, women’s rights and children’s education efforts, the BYU-Hawaii Maka’ala Human Rights Organization set up a booth outside the Aloha Center on Tuesday, Oct. 24 to collect goods and donations. Accepted donations included clothing, water bottles, non-perishable goods and toiletries.

For the past several years, the South American country of Venezuela has steeped into economic and political turmoil. According to Forbes, its economy has dropped from 10th to 33rd place in a decade. With its citizens facing power outages, looting and chaos, BYU–Hawaii students and others in the community with close ties to Venezuela explained the background of the conflict as well as their sympathies for the people.

Comprised of nearly 7 million members from all across the world, BYU–Hawaii students like Rebecca Vigoren, a junior from Washington studying peacebuilding, join the fight with ONE against world hunger. An international campaign and advocacy organization co-founded by U2’s Bono, ONE hopes to end extreme world hunger by the year 2030, according to its official website, www.one.org.

Joining the Church in Hong Kong when she was 10 years old, senior Taffie Kwok said her dream was to come to BYU–Hawaii and fulfilling that dream has changed her life. She graduates on April 16 majoring in communications and minoring in marketing and entrepreneurship.

A recent report revealed that BYU Provo’s Marriott School was valued to have the best MBA program in the country, according to the Business Insider. According to the report done by financial firm M7 Financial, BYU pulls out in front of Harvard.According to the M7 Financial website, it created its financial rankings of top MBA programs by the ability of the average student to pay student loans when after graduation comes around. Assigning a letter grade, it examined schools to see which would be best for students. From the recent report, Harvard and other prestigious schools such as Stanford and Duke, received an A in the report. Schools such as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Yale, and Duke’s MBA programs received A-. Out of the entire list, the BYU Marriott program was the only one to earn an A+.“Harvard. It’s the best of the best, the cream of the crop. As far as academics stands, it’s a very prestigious school,” said Michael Meile, a graduate in IT from Nevada. “To hear that BYU, a church institution, was ranked up there, at first it’s surprising but then you think because of the characteristics that exist there, why not?”M7 calculations gave BYU’s Marriott School an A+ due to the fact that students’ loan obligations are modest in comparison to initial career prospects, according to Business Insider. A BYU graduate would earn an average salary of $110,216, and only sustained a debt of $27,924 on average. In comparison, Harvard’s graduates earn an average salary of $138,924 but even greater debt of $73,926. M7 also calculated in their report how quickly a graduate would be able to pay off loans, and how burdensome a debt could become. Job prospects upon graduating were also examined. Although Harvard has a high employment rate after graduation, students at the Marriott School also have high ratings and good paying jobs, according to the Business Insider. “I think being a member of the church is a big part of it. People look at you differently with a religion. People want to hire LDS. I feel like I could have a job offer easier by being a member of the church,” said Brian Hung, a graduate in math from Hong Kong. Sergelenbaatar Oyungerel, a freshman in accounting in Mongolia, said about the report, “I think it doesn’t matter what school you go to. It’s from you and how you study and how you try to learn things.”Uploaded March 10, 2015

Reminiscing about his boxing career and how it led to temple marriage, Hirini Piikau Wikaira, a senior majoring in Pacific Island Studies from New Zealand, kept a recording of when he won against Auckland, New Zealand champion Andrew Lueii.