Creative ways students support hobbies, career interests

The broke college student is an all too relatable visual, but UC Davis students have found creative ways to fill their pockets and supplement money going toward rent, utilities and tuition. From catering, to starting popular TV show fan-bases, to capturing the beauty of everyday people, Aggies continue to prove that when there is a will, there is a way.

Steven Collins, a fourth-year managerial economics major and computer science minor, has turned his love for the show Avatar: the Last Airbender into a profitable side business.

“I think it all kind of started my sophomore year,” Collins said. “I started doing it because I got involved with a facebook fan page. The page slowly gained an audience of 15,000 likes, and then I kind of realized that I had this audience I could advertise to if I wanted to make something and put it out there.”

Creating graphic T-shirts with quotes and images from the show, Collins began his enterprise through a crowdsourcing site called Tee-Spring. The site allows users like Collins to place designs onto shirts, hoodies, mugs and other items.

“I did a sale on [Facebook], and ended up making 150 dollars in a month,” Collins said. “Since everyone on the Facebook page was there because they liked the show, all the designs I made were geared towards that.”

After starting his new business, Collins discovered Repro Graphics, an on campus graphics business run by UC Davis located in Hoagland Hall. Collins made use of its quick production and prices of $5 per shirt to expand his sales.

“I started making shirts in small batches and tried new designs to see what people liked,” Collins said. “Some [of the shirts] had quotes or inside jokes [based on the show]. One of my favorites was a watercolor type painting by my friend of a mask that a character wears in the show.”

As with most businesses, Collins’ faced various fluxes in demand. While the show and its sequel, Legend of Korra, were on the air, many people showed interest in the shirts.

“Now it’s kind of like a slow trickle-in [of sales], but when the show was more active, [the shirts] would sell a lot more,” Collins said. “I haven’t decided yet whether to branch out to target different audiences or anything like that.”

Collins found his business to be a low-pressure, creative way to make some extra money.

“Anybody could follow the path that I did to make a little money on the side,” Collins said.

Esmeralda Vera, a first-year Chicano/a studies major, is an independent makeup artist. Like Collins, she began her side business as a fan of the material. Her intrigue for makeup art began at an early age, and has grown from fandom into a passion.

“I started doing my own makeup since I was in sixth grade,” Vera said. “I started watching Youtube videos, and that’s how my interest grew.”

As she grew up, Vera also made friends who had similar interests, and together they would discuss their reviews of new makeup products and share ideas. Vera also had a very supportive family to back up her work.

“I have five siblings — two brothers and three sisters,” Vera said. “I practiced on my sister and mom all the time. I never practiced on my brothers, but I wish I had.”

In terms of revenue, Vera doesn’t set strict prices, and is still working on turning her side hobby into a side business. She hopes to be able to offer her services to Davis students.

“I mostly just do it for fun, but I’ve done it on other people, and they’ve given me money,” Vera said. “I usually don’t expect any money, but clients generally give me around 20 dollars [for a session]. I want to gain more practice and definitely want to [expand into a side business].”

Vera believes this endeavor has made her a more confident person, one who is able to give helpful tips on demand.

“Always set your face twice: once with spray and once with setting powder so that it stays,” Vera said.

David Suh, a third-year design major, is an aspiring photographer that runs David Suh Photography. Photography began as his hobby, and has now evolved into his life passion that he wants to make a career out of.

“Photography was a very hobbyist kind of mindset in all my friends,” Suh said. “But I got to know more about photography and went to this big photography conference in St. Louis. Being surrounded by actual professionals and those that have dedicated their time to building their brands showed me its not even just about photography anymore. There’s a whole business element about getting behind sales, and that’s when [photography] turned into a career [for me].”

Suh’s photography also evolved greatly in its subjects and style. He is now focusing on building his brand and specializing in photographing the everyday woman in the style of contemporary magazines.

“It started from street photography and shooting cats and bottles and stuff to shooting people as well, kind of like Humans of New York,” Suh said. “I found that more interesting, with all the different personalities on the street their different fashions. From there I got into portrait photography.”

Suh realized that photography as a career involves much more than just taking pictures, and has been working on building and advertising his business.

“I have gone through a rebranding period, and the last couple months have been about rebuilding my portfolio,” Suh said. “I just finished marketing and getting some local connections. Now I’m really started to get some clients and get busy. I’m also building a promotion for  Mother’s day and the upcoming graduation season.”

Suh’s progress has, quite literally, come at a price. He cut down his personal spending in order to invest the money he makes back into his business to develop it for the long run.

“During my freshman year when [photography] was more of a hobby, I [was] supplementing myself for everyday expenses, but now I’m looking more into a longer game,” Suh said. “Building a business and brand isn’t something you can do overnight — success doesn’t come overnight. It’s really about reinvesting that money back into the business.”

Most importantly, these out-of-classroom experiences are invaluable learning opportunities.

“Find your ‘why’ in school,” Suh said. “Many students are so stuck on short-term stuff like handing in assignments and getting good grades that they don’t really figure out what they want to [do]. In college, as long as you play by the rules and get good grades you’ll be fine, but once you get out into the real world, the market doesn’t have set rules.”
Written By: Sahiti Vemula — features@theaggie.org

Program provides incoming students with support, role models

This past fall, Jessica Chalfin, a second-year animal science major, was matched to mentor a group named #Flawless, comprised of students with a common interest in Beyoncé. This group was a part of First Year Aggie Connections (FYAC), a program that launched during Fall Quarter of 2016 to provide an inclusive environment for students to bond over shared interests and discuss pop culture with one another.

FYAC supports new students, both freshman and transfer, as they transition into life at UC Davis.

“Because UC Davis is this big research university, it is really hard to transition,” said Julianne Smith, FYAC coordinator. “[UC Davis] is very different from any community college [and] is very different from high school, so FYAC is really here to help support students academically and socially as they adjust.”

At their summer orientation, incoming students learn about the program and are then able to register for a connection — a themed group of 25 students. During Fall Quarter, FYAC offered about 150 connections with different themes. Some previous connections offered include the “Get Your Board Game On” connection, the “How to Adult” connection, the “Social Justice” connection and many more.

“Each connection has a different theme or shared interest,” Smith said. “Some themes are academic and some themes are more co-curricular.”

Some connections are offered for credit and can be registered for through schedule builder. Most other connections are not for credit and can be registered for through the Student Academic Success Center website. Usually, each connection meets weekly for one quarter to hold discussions and activities related to their theme. Connections for credit account for attendance while connections that are not for credit are completely voluntary.

All connections hold discussions about topics like transitioning to the campus, advising resources, exploring majors and careers, health and wellness and more.

“No matter if you’re in a for-credit or not-for-credit connection, no matter what your theme is, you talk about these key important topics that we know as staff members [are] really important for students to understand as they adjust to life here,” Smith said.

Each connection is facilitated by a professional staff or faculty member and is focused heavily on student life, which makes it different from other programs or clubs on campus.

“You’re really talking about how to balance your academic life with your social life with other things going on and how to be a successful student here — that’s the point of all these meetings,” Smith said. “Being in a connection means talking a lot about campus culture and talking about the transition in that setting.”

The staff and faculty members that facilitate connections propose the theme for their specific connection.

“They propose a theme — so [it’s] something they feel is missing or needed, or something they just feel passionate about,” Smith said.

FYAC also hires peer mentors for each connection. Though they may not participate in all of the connection activities, peer mentors focus on planning events to connect the students outside the program.

“Based off the big group of peer mentors that we’re hiring now, we do a matching process that kind of looks like an NFL draft or something,” Smith said. “We try to match a peer mentor to a connection that we think will be a good fit based on interest or major or anything like that.”

Chaflin applied to be a peer mentor after she spent her first year in a career discovery connection. Chaflin was also matched to mentor a freshman cohort connection in the College of Biological Sciences during Winter and Spring Quarters.

“It’s really great to be a peer mentor because we’re kind of the ones setting up all the activities [and trying] to get people together,” Chaflin said. “There’s been good and bad — it’s kind of hard to get people to go out to events, but […] our goal [is] to get people oriented with the school and meet more people.”

Emmanuela Cao, a third-year human development major, is also a peer mentor for a the freshman cohort connection in the College of Biological Sciences. Cao didn’t have a smooth transition into college during her freshman year as a first-generation college student. After hearing about this program through Facebook, Cao applied to become a peer mentor.

“This program has been a learning process for myself,” Cao said. “Being a mentor has enhanced my communication skills with peers and faculty and has helped me develop as a leader. It’s been rewarding getting to know these students on a personal level and having some sort of positive impact on them, even if it’s the slightest one.”

Cao usually plans around two to three events per quarter that take place without a facilitator. Past events for her connection students have included trips to the Arboretum, the Davis Farmers’ Market and the Manetti-Shrem Museum.

Like Chaflin, Kiara Cuevas, a second-year animal science major, was in the Creative Discovery connection her freshman year. However, Cuevas also joined another club in which she had the opportunity to meet older students and ask them questions about campus life. These relationships inspired her to become a peer mentor.

“I thought being able to be that person for freshman is really important because that’s what I wanted and what I got when I was a freshman,” Cuevas said.

According to Smith, a lot of students who were in connections their freshman year are coming back and applying to be peer mentors. From these students and other participants, FYAC has received a lot of positive feedback.

“We wanted to create this small group environment for every student who wants it,” Smith said. “[We want them] to be able to have a community, to have a staff member they can ask questions to [and] to have a peer they can ask questions [to] and have fun with.”

Written by: Fatima Siddiqui  – features@theaggie.org