1. In 2005, I left my high school class of 150 students in search of my place among 11,000 Bruins. My room mates & floor mate instantly became my best friends, marking the era of my college career. Fearing the competition of such an excelled student body, I enjoyed a lazy first year load to maintain focus on school, adjust to the new environment and explore all that UCLA had to offer.

  2. Entering my second year, I felt the call of academic and social pressures when I learned all the great things that my peers have already accomplished and what more there was to be done! Eight hundred student groups later, I considered my passions with my options and joined the BruinLife Yearbook photography staff. The press pass privileges allowed me to enjoy watching the USC football team jeopardize their record breaking winning streak to the underdog bruin football team, 13 - 9, from the sidelines and capture the amazing talents of my to-be-famous peers in the annual UCLA talent show, Spring Sing. Following my acceptance into the Communication Studies major, I was bombarded with resources that lead to my year long internship at the television magazine program, Southern California Life. There, I not only realized my graphic potential but after producing televised package, I found that television broadcasting was not as glamorous as I had hoped. At the end of the year, I pursued my dream of studying abroad and departed for Madrid, Spain, only knowing one Spanish phrase, "Muy caliente!”

  1. It was in this Spanish major that I grew to appreciate what culture really meant. From the beginning, I met the Ombudsperson of Costa Rica who alerted me that human rights was no where on the United States government agenda. For the first time, I saw America through very different eyes and discovered European history and arts in more detail than my elementary school text books. instruction took place in the Museo del Prado before Las Meninas and the gay pride celebration was a four day weekend event. I survived with little Spanish, but survived nonetheless, and will never forget calling my tiny apartment in Madrid, "home."

  2. I knew that I was nearing the end of my college career. Now understanding that the world was a lot bit bigger that I had previously thought, I joined Tau Theta Pi, a multicultural anti-sorority sorority in search of something beyond my own social circle where I might experience something larger than myself. Knowing that my participation was limited to my tenure at UCLA, I continue to participate actively as an alumni. I resumed my professional work as an intern forTreehouse LA, an experimental marketing firm in the middle of Hollywood, where my research, event planning and graphic design capabilities came to grow. Most notably, I assisted in the execution of, and designed the graphics for, the Fords release event: The Ford Flex Rally, where Heroes's star Hayden Panettiere's recent haircut was enough to generate the press to publicize the car.

  3. Not a fan of promoting S.U.V.'s for single passenger commuter audiences, I realized that I did not want to spend my life making money for a large corporation and that my energy could be better spent helping someone less fortunate. I found an internship at the non-profit Meaningful Media and the for-profit partner, Eyes of the World Media Group. After a bit of monotonous data entry, my personality was put on the telephones for marketing for the Eyes of the World project, Meth Inside Out. My marketing experience from Treehouse LA furthered my role in the efforts where I was trained in HTML and email marketing.

  4. I completed my coursework six months early and joined the Eyes of the World team as a marketing assistant and redesigned the public service kit that would provide educational materials free of charge. I was asked to hone in on my research skills on a quest for new projects and became the lead for this Business Development project. In the few months, my work reputation has landed me freelance marketing assistant positions for documentary film maker Ben Mittleman's Dying to Live: Journey into a man's open heart and comedian Eric Schwartz's CD Parodies Nuts.

  1. This Michelle Wong graduated with Bachelors of Arts in Communication Studies & Sociology from the University of California, Los Angeles 2008.