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Student Spotlight
Film and Media Studies major Katelyn Zamudio recently produced Playdolls, a documentary that looks at the issue of human trafficking from different perspectives. In a recent interview, Zamudio discusses her experience bringing this issue to light in an empathetic way.
In a recent interview, Raymok Ketema, a first-generation African American college student pursuing her PhD in History at UCSB, discussed her project for the Center for Black Studies Research on minorities in engineering and why she perseveres in her work for women, the Black community, and other people of color.
Third-year student Zeina Safadi, majoring in political science with minor in professional writing, is accustomed to public speaking. As she works towards graduation and a future career in law, she balances her academic life and jobs: undergraduate peer advisor, Mock Trial president, legal assistant at the law offices of Robert B. Locke, and attorney general at UC Santa Barbara. With an impressive resume and a facility for public speaking, Safadi spoke in a recent interview about the ways public speaking has played an important role in her life.
It’s a “dystopian fiction tragi-comedy set in 2050” that explores “our desire of a technological utopia that is supported by human greed and inevitable climate change,” said Maiza Hixon, a graduating Master of Fine Arts student.
Hixon recently held a reading of her first written play Chimera at the Art, Design and Architecture Museum in conjunction with the opening of the 2019 MFA thesis exhibition Temporary Clash.
“I consider that evening in May 2018 and the months of work leading up to it to be some of the most memorable and impactful experiences of my life,” says Giovanna Vicini, a graduating Film & Media Studies and Communication double major at UCSB, of hosting the 27th Annual Reel Loud Film & Arts Festival onstage at Campbell Hall. “My teammates and I led the organization toward record-breaking growth, achieving Reel Loud’s most competitive year to date.”
Directors rely on history to be a backdrop and to set the scene for their storytelling, Film and Media Studies and History double major Ryann Stibor says. In a recent interview, she answers questions about how knowledge of history affects society today and how that knowledge intersects with her second major in film.
“I never considered that I wanted to be a director until I realized that you had to put yourself in the position of an actor,” Theater and English student Katherine Hamilton admitted in a recent interview. She discusses what influenced her to change her focus from acting to directing, and how that choice—and her subsequent directing of “I Didn’t Want a Mastodon,” a student-produced, one-act comedy—has influenced her in return.
Kaili Emery, a UC Santa Barbara global studies major, spent her fall quarter pursuing an international marketing internship in in Colombia. In an interview, Emery explains how her UCSB education influenced this experience abroad.
The following Student Spotlight videos, produced by Writing Program students, feature three UCSB artists who express their academic interests and personalities through their creative endeavors.
Student film director Hunter Johnsen discusses his passion for film and his involvement in the Film and Media Studies Crew Production class. His movie called “Obsolete,” a project for this course, is set to premiere March 22 at the Pollock Theater.
Word Magazine explores life in Isla Vista, the neighborhood next to campus. As current art director of the magazine, Alaska Yokota is one of a team of students who writes for the magazine and designs its layout. In a recent interview, Yokota discussed her experience with Word Magazine and her views on the future of digital humanities.
Dance and Psychology major Yuna Choi has been planning the Mini Beach Ball hosted by UC Santa Barbara’s cotillion club. The Mini Beach Ball, a collegiate dance competition, will be held later in May. In a recent interview, Choi talked about her experience planning the upcoming dance competition and what she hopes to accomplish by coordinating this year’s Mini Beach Ball.
Sociology major Tomas Palpallatoc shares his passion for poetry and his success at the UCSB Poetry in Performance Poetry Slam. In April, Palpallatoc will advance to the College Unions Poetry Slam Invitational in Houston, Texas with the UCSB slam team.
A curtain of floating ginkgo-tree leaves, which once sprinkled Sarah Dahl’s front yard, fluttered overhead as visitors stopped by UC Santa Barbara’s Glass Box Gallery to admire the hovering city maps of places Dahl has called home. Dahl, a senior Physical Geography and Art double major, displayed her installation, titled “Please Forward, No Longer at This Address,” in the Art department’s student-run gallery exhibit “Body of Proof.” The installation was created as an ode to all of the places where Dahl has lived, and who she has become as the memories have begun to fade.
In a recent interview, Dahl spoke about her work, where she plans to take it, and what receiving an award as a Honors in Art student meant to her.
This series of videos, produced by UC Santa Barbara students, showcases the creative talent of students, faculty, and alumni from Humanities and Fine Arts.
“I like doing things that aren't just the norm. I don’t want to have a nine-to-five job,” says Dorian Elgrichi, a senior Film and Media studies major, who is currently running two companies while he is still in school — a photo booth company and a car detailing company. He has recently started a partnership with the electric skateboard company Riptide, creating a video for the firm in order to promote the use of its skateboards on college campuses.
Originally from Beverly Hills, Elgrichi transferred to UC Santa Barbara from Santa Monica College in 2017. He has been working in film production since participating in a film program during high school in Beverly Hills.
In this interview, Elgrichi speaks on how he has combined his love of film and his desire to succeed in business.
Chinese student Zhitao Kou describes how UC Santa Barbara eased his transition into American university life with programs for international students and step-up Linguistics department classes run by the English for Multilingual Students.
“ Each of us needed to write and present on current affairs such as presidential election, American social classes, American ethnicities and so on. Compared to other easy freshman courses, these classes are quite challenging,” writes Kou, who also benefited from one-on-one contact with professors.
Blake Thompson, a third-year student at UC Santa Barbara who is pursuing a double major in Theater and Communication, devoted the last weeks of summer and first weeks of fall preparing for her role in the pared down Hamlet, which ran for 19 performances over a two week period.
In a recent interview, Thompson talked about the field of acting and how the Division of Humanities and Fine Arts helps an aspiring actress reach her potential.
Michelle Sharp, a double major in Art and Mathematics who graduated this spring, decided to branch out from her background in mathematics to expand her repertoire in the arts. Sharp is among a growing number of UCSB students who are combining STEM majors with those in the Humanities and Fine Arts.
Sharp exhibited much of her photography in the Glass Box Galleries, which feature student and faculty creative work on campus. And she created an animated short, “Agnus’ Front Lawn,” for one of her film production classes, which is a comedy about an old woman trying to win the neighborhood’s lawn competition.
After exploring the ins and outs of various creative departments, Sharp is finding her passion in animation. She finds it is easy to get jobs in art-related fields, saying it takes hard work but if you are dedicated it isn’t much different than finding jobs in STEM related fields.
Peruvian-American mezzo-soprano Kelly Newberry was 14 years old when she found her vocal gift. She walked into high school in Simi Valley and signed up for choir since she needed an elective and all her friends were doing it. The teacher gave her a solo and that marked the beginning of her music career.
Newberry remembers when an opera singer from Austria came into her high school class offering voice lessons and sang Habanera from Carmen. Still not very much convinced that it was what she wanted to do, Newberry signed up and during her first lesson the instructor stared at her and told her she had an amazing voice for opera.
“I fell in love with it because of how emotional and raw opera can be and it’s so unabashedly emotional,” she recalls.
