2014 Graphic Arts Grad now EIC at UC

Warren County Career Center Alumna Autumn Lala graduated from Springboro High School and completed the WCCC Graphic Arts & Imaging program in 2014. She is a dual-English major at the University of Cincinnati studying Rhetoric & Professional Writing and Creative Writing Fiction. She says that studying Rhetoric and Professional Writing equips her with the skills to communicate a message, inform an audience, or persuade a group of people in multiple formats such as oral, written and visual. She is in her third year of college, and is technically a senior with 92 credits but due to scheduling, she will graduate in the spring of 2018. She hopes to attain a graduate assistantship and continue into graduate school for her Masters.

Along with her studies, she is a Teaching Assistant at UC's college of Design, Art, Architecture, and Planning and serves as the Editor-in-Chief of the University of Cincinnati branch of the online publication, Odyssey. In that capacity she mentors and manages 20 to 30 content creators on a weekly basis. This semester, she is carrying 15 credit hours.

Her journey into a career of writing, publishing and teaching began with inspiration from her father’s business, Innovative Creations, to pursue graphic arts. She visited the WCCC Graphic Arts program in her sophomore year and said, “I knew within the minute of meeting (instructor) Howard Norris in his lab room - bustling with students and creativity - that WCCC was where I wanted to be. He was passionate, understanding, and well-spoken; I couldn't ask for more from a teacher.”

She says that WCCC prepared her well for college. “Because of the advanced courses I took and responsibilities I shouldered, my time at WCCC prepared me for the multi-faceted reality of college, employment, and personal obligations,” she said. “Although there is no exact training course for Life, the opportunities offered to me at WCCC equipped me with the necessary time-management tools to achieve all that I have and hope to.”

She credits her experience as Editor-in-Chief of the WCCC yearbook as being instrumental in proving her aptitude to be the EIC at UC’s Odyssey, and her general experience and knowledge in the industry to qualify her to become a Teaching Assistant at DAAP. She was offered the EIC position just three months after joining the Odyssey staff. She says she is grateful for the mentoring of her instructor, counselor and assistant principal.

“WCCC offers students like me opportunities to learn, grow, and gain skills on a professional level; I would not be where I am today without my time there,” she said. “I am thankful every single day to employees such as Howard Norris, Tony Crawford, and Kim Gambill.”

Between her academics and building her resume as a TA and EIC, she still carves out time to write and submit. “To keep up the success I have had in the last year, I need to keep momentum by continuing to put out quality work,” she said. “This month alone I have sent out two guest-blog articles, two fiction submissions, two poetry submissions, and just last night, I entered three poetry pieces into a literary magazine's contest. It can be taxing at times, juggling so many priorities, but like the saying goes: ‘Dreams don't work unless you do.’"

You can see her work in her professional ePortfolio and blog at www.autumnlala.weebly.com.

“Someday, I would like to either be an English professor or an editor,” she says. “With the way I work, perhaps both are in my future.”

Her instructor, and those who know her, do not doubt that she can reach that goal.