Power Up Cohort Experience (Summer 2021): Part 1
Meet the Power Uppers from Blendees, Cafe X, and Cut & Dry Barbershop
What is Power Up?
Power Up is a 10-week summer design program that prepares UCSD students for real-world innovation by pairing student teams with BIPOC-owned and minority-owned businesses seeking to refine their branding, redesign their website, or boost their exposure. Our program is driven by our Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion initiative, which is intended to support BIPOC communities in the San Diego area and give underrepresented design students more opportunities to develop their skills. In order to better aid these BIPOC and minority communities, we brought together design and marketing students alike to provide comprehensive deliverables for these small businesses.
We expanded on our previous summer program, Level Up, to include more:
- Students (from 20 to 25)
- Mentors (from 10 design mentors to 14 design and marketing mentors)
- Roles
- and 5 real clients
Each team — made up of UX Designers, Marketing Strategists, Content Strategists, Visual Designers, UX Researchers, and Web Builders — received guidance from industry mentors as they crafted sustainable designs and deliverables that’ll live beyond the scope of the project.
Meet the Power Uppers from Blendees, Cafe X, and Cut & Dry Barbershop
Adrian Valdez — Blendees
Adrian was the Marketing & Content Strategist for Blendees. He is a recent UCSD graduate (2021) and will be getting his Masters in International Affairs. Blendees is a Black-owned smoothie and juice bar. The Blendees team worked to increase their online presence through the creation of a new website, an implementation of an online ordering system, social media branding guidelines, and a marketing campaign.
Q: What was your biggest takeaway from your experience this summer? How have you grown and learned from the program?
Personally, my biggest takeaway was allowing myself to ideate in my advice, suggestions, and deliverables. In past research and intern experience, I was often told exactly what to do, this partnership with Blendees allowed for a newfound creativity which at first made me nervous. “Is this a good idea?” “Will the stakeholders hate this?” were often questions I asked myself, but the support from my team and stakeholders let me know that being flexible and adaptable is key! (also having lots of different versions of ideas or mock ups doesn’t hurt either)
Q: What did you enjoy most about Power Up?
The thing I enjoyed most about Power Up was my team. They were a fantastic source of inspiration, support, and laughs. You often hear about how group projects suck in college, but having a group of focused and knowledgeable teammates made the last 10 weeks a breeze and I appreciate them.
Learn more about his team’s project in Blendees’ Case Study
Minnie Chau — Cafe X: By Any Beans Necessary
Minnie was the UX Designer for Cafe X. She is a 4th year UCSD student majoring in Cognitive Science with a specialization in Design and Interaction. Cafe X is a Black, women-owned coffee shop. The Cafe X team worked on a brand refresh, as well as integrating their websites onto a single platform and improving customer acquisition and retention strategies.
Q: What did you enjoy most about Power Up?
I really enjoyed seeing each team’s progress every week, amazed at the ways they’re taking on their challenges. It was so cool to see how each team keeps building and building upon their work, and seeing everything come to life. I loved talking to my fellow UX designers as well… And of course, I enjoyed working with my super friendly and super chill Café X team members. I’m really glad I was able to work with some wonderful and creative minds. Also, I used to be a bit nervous and shy about presenting my work to other people, but the weekly standups in this program has given me so much practice that I’ve become a little more confident and comfortable in doing presentations.
Q: What was the biggest challenge your team faced while working with your small business, and how did you tackle it?
A major challenge we faced was scheduling conflicts with our small business…since we couldn’t meet up [in one particular week], we filmed short video presentations and sent it to Café X for their feedback. Even though we missed a meeting for that week, we wanted to let them know our progress so far, and it was important to hear their thoughts about what we’re doing.
Nathen Shin — Cafe X: By Any Beans Necessary
Nathen was the Marketing & Content Strategist for Cafe X. He is a 4th year UCSD student majoring in Business Psychology.
Q: What was the biggest challenge your team faced while working with your small business, and how did you tackle it?
Communication between our small business was limited as they were extremely busy, but we solved it by being proactive in our prep work for the stakeholder meetings! This would help to keep the meetings running as smooth and efficient as possible, and ensure that we kept advancing forward. :D
Q: What did you enjoy most about Power Up?
For sure the people haha, I loved working with my team and mentors and I learned so much about different work styles, industry insights, and general marketing skills. And none of it would have been possible if it weren’t for the people I got to interact with during Power Up. :)
Learn more about Minnie and Nathen’s project in Cafe X’s Case Study
Lillian Wei — Cut & Dry Barbershop
Lillian was the Marketing & Content Strategist for Cut & Dry Barbershop. She’s a 3rd year UCSD student majoring in Business Economics. Cut & Dry is an Asian-American owned and operated barbershop located in Mira Mesa. The Cut & Dry team worked on creating a new website, as well as revamping the social media branding and content for this family of barbers.
Q: What was your biggest takeaway from your experience this summer? How have you grown and learned from the program?
My biggest takeaway from Power Up this summer is that every experience is truly valuable, no matter what role it is. Though I never intended on pursuing content strategy as a career, I know that the skills and knowledge I gained from working in this role will serve me well in other roles I plan on pursuing in the future. It has furthered my communication, writing, and critical thinking skills, which are applicable skills in any field. I’ve never heard of copywriting before this program and never even given much thought into the text I see on a daily basis. Now, I pay lots of attention to the words I read on a website or for a brand and feel a greater sense of appreciation for them. It’s super interesting to me what types of careers are out there that I don’t even know exist, and content is definitely a fun one.
Q: What did you enjoy most about Power Up?
What I enjoyed most about Power Up was creating real positive impact on others and actually having our project come to life. A lot of times, we have all these brilliant ideas or want to do something, but they end up being just words and never put into action or even reach completion. In Power Up, at first, it was hard for me to imagine that we could even create a whole new website from scratch or be able to carry out a social media revamp for a live business. It all seemed like another cool idea that people talk about but never make it happen. However, I was definitely proven wrong when our drafts and ideas started coming to life. It was the coolest thing for me to see our final prototype on Figma and having our awesome web builder actually make it into a real thing. I was also excited to implement some materials that we made for Cut & Dry’s social media. It amazes me that all the goals we had initially were reached, and our project came together in the end and impacted a small business in a positive way.
Learn more about her team’s project in Cut & Dry’s Case Study
Any final words about your experience?
Adrian Valdez
Loved the way Power Up fostered a friendly sense of community, Loved the way our Stakeholders (Monique & Andrianna) were hugely supportive, & Loved the invaluable advice from our incredibly talented Mentors. Thank you!
Nathen Shin
Thanks so much to all the mods for this awesome experience, I for real loved it even though it was a lot of work and quite stressful at times hahahah. I really appreciated how y’alls tried to make it go as smoothly as possible. :)
Lillian Wei
Power Up was an extremely valuable experience for me. As a business student passionate about design, it was super fun to do this. It taught me more about the field and how much I truly love to be creative. I never thought I would be able to have any experiences in design due to my background and career interests, but I am truly grateful that I got to experience and learn about things that I normally wouldn’t have.
Hear from 3 Power Uppers from Furlicious and Kini Koffee in this article.
Read about 4 of the mentors’ experience in this article.
