The Cal Poly Transfer club is one that lacks attention on campus but has great motives. After completing our social engagement report, I found that a lot of Cal Poly students are unaware of the club. Why? In fall of 2016, 779 transfers were admitted to Cal Poly in comparison to 4,341 freshmen. As you can see there is a huge gap here, which is why we wanted to look into the transfer club that recently started up again this fall.
Our video producer was the perfect person for this position. Victoria Gracie is a transfer student herself and was passionate about producing a video that sheds a light on the community. She said her transfer experience was not easy. She went behind the scenes to the club’s potluck study event and saw what the club’s community and interaction was like. Obtaining interviews was a lot easier this time around than previous stories.
“Getting interviews and sources early really worked out to our advantage because we were able to adapt and find new sources as needed,” said Victoria.
Spenser’s job was the interactive components. He decided to do photos of transfer students in their everyday environments. By doing this, the audience could hopefully get an insight into what the club does and looks like. Spenser also felt that our story was smoother this time around because of the willingness of our sources.
“The story came together smoothly because our sources were quick to respond,” said Spenser.
The transfer club is a place for transfer students to come and feel welcomed and joined by community. There are close to 200 people in their GroupMe, which is the club’s main source of contact. Itai Maine, a transfer student at Cal Poly, described the club as “a big community”.
A few other transfer students were also willing to help with our story. We got input from Alisa Frost, the president of the club, and Primo Fachinni, a member of the club. As the strategy and engagement role, I felt we had a lot of strong background information on transfer students in general and Cal Poly students’ overall knowledge about the club. Our goal was to go inside the club and look at members of the club’s stories.
Jarrod’s role was word. He said the most helpful part during the process was the one on one meeting.
“The one-on-one meeting helped me instrumentally in analyzing my work and updating it to where it needed to be,” said Jarrod.