Like many kids, Natalie Ludwig was asked in kindergarten what she wanted to be when she grew up. Some of the common answers – astronaut, musician, veterinarian – never crossed Ludwig’s mind. And it’s safe to say that her answer probably didn’t cross the mind of her classmates. She wanted to work at McDonald’s because of her love for their chicken nuggets.  At 16, the moment Ludwig was legally allowed to work, she turned that dream into a reality and worked at McDonald’s for nearly two years. Ludwig likes to say that her dreams haven’t changed much since then because, years later, her career path is still centered around her passion for food.   Ludwig is graduating from Cal State San Marcos this spring with a bachelor’s in business administration with an emphasis in marketing. A first-generation student, she has flourished academically while simultaneously growing her popular foodie TikTok account @eatsbynat to nearly 270,000 followers. Ludwig grew up in Hampshire, Ill., a small rural town of about 7,600 people an hour northwest of Chicago. She and her twin sister Nicole always had their hearts set on one day moving to California. Their father grew up in Huntington Beach and always talked highly about living on the West Coast.  After both sisters completed their associate degrees at Elgin Community College near their hometown, Ludwig and Nicole began researching California universities to see if it was possible to make the move. The first university to show up in their search? Cal State San Marcos. Ludwig took it as a sign. Over the next four months, she and Nicole applied to CSUSM, flew to California for four days and found an apartment. They didn’t even get a chance to tour campus, but they were ready for a new start. “After getting my associate's degree in Illinois, I had no idea what I wanted to do, absolutely no clue,” said Ludwig, whose sister received her bachelor’s from CSUSM in media studies in fall 2022. “We weren't sure if we could afford it, but everything worked out and we just took a leap of faith.” The move paid off for Ludwig, who discovered that she has a knack for social media marketing when her videos started to gain traction in 2021.  “It’s a gift to wake up every day wanting to do it,” Ludwig said. “For school, you have a deadline. But nobody's next to you telling you you must post today. You have to think of new ideas. You have to brainstorm. You have to come up with all these concepts. Consistency is the most important thing and loving what you do. If you don't love what you're posting, you don't love your niche or your content, you're not going to stay consistent.” Ludwig and her sister both successfully post food reviews on TikTok (@nicole.ludwig). Ludwig’s content ranges from eating at local restaurants in San Diego to franchise bakeries like Crumbl Cookies. While she isn’t afraid to try new things, her favorite foods to review are desserts.  “I joke and I say like 90% of my diet is sweets but in reality, it really is,” Ludwig said. “I love cookies. I love ice cream. Sweets are my main thing, and I love posting it because I just love to eat them.” Ludwig doesn’t just introduce viewers to new food stops and products. Her videos deliver a bigger message.  When Ludwig was in the sixth grade, she was hospitalized with an eating disorder. Her family has helped her develop a healthy relationship with food, and she wants to do the same for her viewers. “It's been a roller coaster ride, but I'm glad I can use my platform to share my story,” Ludwig said. “I get comments all the time saying that ‘Watching you eat this food makes me want to eat it, too.’ This is really one of the main reasons I wanted to start my account because I just want to help other people.” The work Ludwig has put into her social media accounts has also been used on collaborative research projects with her professors. She is currently working with CSUSM marketing professor Vassilis Dalakas and Western Kentucky University professor Joanna Melancon on how sounds in TikTok videos can impact shopping behavior.  “I made the video they are using for the experiment,” Ludwig said. “The goal is to compare and see if people purchase a product depending on a happy or sad song.”  Ludwig was recently recognized as the Outstanding Student for Marketing at the College of Business Administration Dean’s Breakfast for her ability to continuously go above and beyond both inside and outside the classroom.  Ludwig plans to continue growing her social media platforms after she graduates and work with Nicole and her brother on their start-up marketing agency, Digital Direct Marketing.  “CSUSM has helped me become who I am and grow my interests not only in social media, but business as well,” Ludwig said. “I'm so thankful for this school because it has helped me in ways that I couldn't even imagine. I wouldn't be where I am today without the opportunity to come to CSUSM or come to California.” Media Contact Eric Breier, Interim Assistant Director of Editorial and External Affairs ebreier@csusm.edu | Office: 760-750-7314

Sarah Bricke was a student entering her final year at Cal State San Marcos when Ellen Neufeldt was hired as president of the university in the summer of 2019. They first connected a few months later. Bricke, an art, media and design major, was the co-curator of a student art exhibition titled “Juncture,” and Neufeldt dropped in on the opening event to express her admiration. Neufeldt, it turned out, was an art lover, to the extent that she converted a room in her Escondido home into a gallery space. And when, during her first year at CSUSM, she decided to display student art in that space, sure enough, it was Bricke’s art that was chosen (along with that of Kimberly Lopez, her co-curator for the student exhibit). Four years later, Bricke’s relationship with the university and its president has come full circle. In January, the art created by Bricke the student was removed from Neufeldt’s home gallery. In its place was installed art by two current or recent CSUSM students that was selected by Bricke, now a professional artist and curator. “I’m really happy to have been asked to curate the exhibition,” Bricke said. “It brings together all of these things that are intensely personal and specific to me, but that also resonate with the larger community at CSUSM, including the faculty of the art department and the president’s office, and hopefully the president herself. It’s a beautiful thing and, for me, it’s really what makes this worth doing.” After being hired to curate the exhibition last fall, Bricke opened a submissions process for CSUSM arts faculty to recommend students whose work was especially accomplished. From a group of almost 20 students, Bricke chose five oil paintings each by Karolina Lopez and Esther Rodriguez. The exhibition’s theme, Bricke says, relates to the “intersection of landscape and lived experiences of these two women who are navigating life as students, set against one of the most contested borders in the world.” Rodriguez said she created her paintings last spring during an independent study course leading up to her May graduation, under the direction of lecturer Heidi Brar. “It was a great surprise when Sarah gave me the news, and I never could have imagined my pieces being displayed in the home of President Neufeldt,” said Rodriguez, who’s now pursuing a Master of Fine Arts degree at National University. “This exhibition means a step further in my career as an artist. Also, I am representing the CSUSM arts faculty, which makes me feel very proud of this accomplishment.” Brar actually mentored both selected students, first in her AMD: Advanced Painting course and then in the independent painting projects that evolved into the exhibited paintings. She said the students have different approaches to painting – Rodriguez “uses bright colors and personal imagery to interweave personal narratives with larger cultural themes,” while Lopez shows a “remarkable ability to capture the essence and color palette of iconic landscape locations in San Diego" – but are equally deserving of the recognition. “Both students’ perseverance and hard work distinguished them among the AMD majors, and I feel they are very relevant choices for the president’s collection,” Brar said. “Their work presents an opportunity to appreciate the impact the college makes and celebrate the talents of these wonderful students.” Bricke’s model of resilience and determination since her time at CSUSM is one that the student artists might hope to emulate. Graduating just as the COVID-19 pandemic was heating up in 2020, she hoped to obtain an MFA degree but didn’t get into any of the four graduate programs she applied to. Feeling lonely in isolation and discouraged by the setback, she rededicated herself to her art, and when she applied to nine programs the following year, she was accepted by eight of them and chose one of the most prestigious in the nation – the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. “SAIC was my reach school. I really felt like it was a long shot,” Bricke said. “When I got the big envelope in the mail, I was over the moon. I couldn’t believe it.” SAIC is a low-residency program, which means that students aren’t expected to live full-time in the city where the institution is located. That made it an ideal fit for Bricke, a single mother who didn’t want to uproot her daughter, Crimson (now 10), from their home in Vista. Bricke would travel to Chicago for in-person work toward her degree over the summer, but otherwise she was free to stay in Southern California, interrupted by a couple of trips with Crimson to places like Berkeley and New York City to tackle projects related to artists’ archives. “I felt this confidence as a scholar and an academic and an artist,” she said. “But the setup also gave me greater confidence as a mother.” Bricke uses multiple terms to describe her art, including “conceptual” and “research-based.” The one she prefers, though, is “transdisciplinary.” She describes it as combining academic disciplines, materials and methods in an attempt to make something new that hasn’t been done before. For Bricke, transdisciplinary art manifests itself in novel and subversive ways. She will attend academic conferences and present what she calls performative lectures, in which she adopts the traditional role of an academic while simultaneously challenging the conventions of the higher education system. Her website is another example. A page that on a traditional site might be titled “About Me” is instead called “forms of refusal,” and in place of the typical artist bio is a paragraph that reads: “Sarah … believes that biographical content is largely unnecessary and generally uninteresting. Alternatively, this placeholder for formulaic recitations of academic degrees, artistic achievements and prestigious awards offers an opportunity to test parafictions and substitute narratives.” “I think of my website as a work, and its function isn’t to present objects that I’ve made so that curators can see them and put me in an exhibition,” Bricke said. “It functions more as a thing to talk about. Curation was a natural extension of this concept, where I thought, ‘I want to gather objects and people and images so that we can have dialogue around them.’ And for me, that dialogue, that exchange between the art, the person who made the art and anyone else, like the viewer, that is where the art resides.” Bricke graduated from SAIC last July, and for the last year she has been juggling art projects like the curation for Neufeldt’s home with preparations to begin a doctoral program this fall. She's pursuing a Ph.D. at UC San Diego in contemporary art history with a focus on gender and sexuality, and artists’ archives. “I've come to see that I have an artist/scholar, scholar/artist practice,” she said. “I would love to teach because I've had such incredible mentorship from faculty at CSUSM and at SAIC, which has changed me as an artist and an academic and a scholar, but also as a person. I'd like to pass that on.” Media Contact Brian Hiro, Communications Specialist bhiro@csusm.edu | Office: 760-750-7306

How can one turn popular candies such as gummy bears, gummy worms and peach rings into a side business? Ask Cal State San Marcos marketing student Mo Carrasco.  Carrasco has been surrounded by entrepreneurs for multiple years, as her mother and aunt have a business in which they create and sell rim dip, a paste usually created with tamarind and chamoy that are then used to cover the rims of beers and other beverages. Carrasaco’s mom and aunt developed their own recipe for these rim dips in 2020. While Carrasco wasn't involved in the process, she used it as inspiration for her own business, Hot Summer Gummies (@hotsummergummies on Instagram).  “Where I live, tamarindo gummies are very popular,” said Carrasco, who is from Imperial Valley. “Personally, I don’t really like those ones, but my mom’s recipe was really good, so I pitched ideas.”  Carrasco’s mom was on board with the new idea. Together they picked up different kinds of candy, developed logos and packaging, and then Carrasco started selling the new gummies at her community college sporting events while attending Imperial Valley College.  “A lot of people really liked them, and I was selling out every time I went to the games,” Carrasco said. “I pitched the gummies to the owners of the stores that had rim dip in them. They loved the idea and gave me space to put them in their stores.” Carrasco said her goal going forward is to expand her business into San Diego, or even sell the gummies on campus. Carrasco is on the right track to help her business progress. Last fall, she was the winner of the Innovation Hub’s Quick Pitch competition, which closely resembles the hit TV show “Shark Tank” in which competitors pitch their business ideas to a panel of judges. Carrasco received $1,000 for her winning pitch.  “I was in shock,” Carrasco said. “I had a big smile on my face, and I was like, ‘Oh my god, no way.’ ” Carrasco put the prize money into her savings, with plans to utilize it for her business.   Not only did winning the Quick Pitch provide funds to help grow the business, but it also equipped her with lifelong lessons.  “I remember sitting down at the competition and I almost walked out because I was so nervous,” Carrasco said. “But I said, ‘We’re just going to do it.’  “It really showed me what I was capable of and helped me step out of my comfort zone – and it made me feel that what I'm doing is good. I got really good feedback. I brought gummies with me and went home empty-handed at the end of the night because I sold them all. It just gave me a lot of confidence.” Carrasco is using this newfound confidence while working toward her degree at CSUSM. She will graduate in May 2025 with a bachelor's degree in marketing. While she has thoughts of continuing with the business, her dream is to be a social media coordinator for the Los Angeles Lakers.  “I’m very open-minded,” Carrasco said. “I’ll just see what happens.”  Media Contact Eric Breier, Interim Assistant Director of Editorial and External Affairs ebreier@csusm.edu | Office: 760-750-7314

A new space has opened in the Cal State San Marcos library that promotes and celebrates the old-fashioned idea of using your creativity and your hands to make stuff. The makerspace, called The Makery, is located on the second floor of the library, just inside the doors leading to the main traffic circle, in an area that used to house the media library. It was unveiled to the campus community on Feb. 29 as part of a soft opening, and the grand opening celebration will take place on April 23, with a ribbon-cutting attended by President Ellen Neufeldt and other campus leaders at noon followed by a open house until 6 p.m. And of course, as befits the name, The Makery’s first official week from April 22-26 will feature a host of maker activities, inviting guests to gather, create, invent, tinker, explore and discover while using a vast assortment of tools and materials. “I don’t want people to be afraid to come in, or afraid of failing or afraid of what they don’t know,” said Kodie Gerritsen, a CSUSM alumna who’s now the makerspace specialist. “They can just come in here and mess up a bunch and still have a finished product at the end of it. I use the term ‘get your hands dirty’ a lot because that’s the point. The point is to come in here and get messy and make things.” The Makery is a project that’s five years in the, er, making. Having noticed that more than half of the 23 California State University campuses boast makerspaces in their libraries, CSUSM’s library dean, Jennifer Fabbi, took the idea to a group of administrators and faculty in 2019. They began to develop the concept, surveyed professors about how they would use it and even visited some existing makerspaces around the state. Then the pandemic struck, shelving the project for more than two years. It was revived in fall 2022 with the hiring of Gerritsen. She had graduated the previous year with a degree in arts and technology/applied physics, and was working as a STEAM ambassador for Center ARTES, an on-campus arts organization founded by CSUSM music professor Merryl Goldberg. Lucy HG Solomon, another School of Arts professor and Gerritsen’s main faculty mentor, heard about the makerspace opportunity and thought Gerritsen would be a good fit. “And it turns out I was,” Gerritsen said. Gerritsen set about designing the 2,280-square-foot space with Char Booth, the library’s associate dean; the Office of Planning, Design and Construction; and an internal library group. Funding came from a Kellogg Library building endowment that is specifically to be used for library renovations. The Makery was chosen through a campus naming contest. It was the overwhelming winner over the other two finalists: “Sandbox” and “Buildbox.” “A makerspace in the library allows for a centralized space that is accessible and open to everyone in the campus community,” Fabbi said. “The Makery is a space where students, staff and faculty can use information to create new knowledge, which is what the library is all about.” The creative flair and sense of whimsy that Gerritsen brought to the design of The Makery is evident even before you step into the room. A large neon sign hanging above the door displays the name of the makerspace in blue, green and orange letters. To the immediate right past the entrance is a collection of 27 high-density foam cubes that can be used for sitting in a large group collaboration or for alternate purposes like building a wall or other structures. On either side of a desk where a student assistant is stationed to welcome visitors are two enclosed rooms. One of them, called The Pantry, features a few desktop computers for people to work on digital projects in a quiet atmosphere. The other is named Gina’s Game Corner in tribute to Georgina “Gina” Lopez, a longtime library employee who passed away last year. It has a game table and shelves that are stocked with games, puzzles and other forms of entertainment. “I wanted to have a place where people can relax and have fun, unload a little bit,” Gerritsen said. “We ultimately settled on a game room, in part because Gina enjoyed those types of things, and also because we have a lot of games in the library and many people don’t know about them.” The rest of The Makery is a large open area with half a dozen square tables topped with butcher blocks and surrounded by bright, colorful chairs. All are on wheels so that the furniture can be moved into any configuration. On an afternoon last month, two of the tables had been pushed together to display a paper welcome banner that visitors could draw and color on, and a third table held a container of purple kinetic sand. The star attraction of The Makery, however, is the back wall. There you can find the primary making equipment, such as sewing machines, embroidery machines, a cameo cutter machine, button makers, a craft printer, a paper cutter and a power drill. There also are bins upon bins of arts and crafts supplies like paint, beads, string, ribbons, clips, rubber bands, markers and dozens more miscellaneous items. The opposite wall is lined with shelves that showcase some of the creations that students already have made during the limited time that The Makery has been open. “It's been cool seeing them make things on their own without direction,” said Ryan Dorsett, a 2015 CSUSM alumnus who in January shifted from a different job in the library to run the makerspace with Gerritsen. “It's like, ‘Wow, you made that here.’ We really wanted people to be excited about the space, and there's been a lot of excitement that students have expressed. They've been very clear in their joy.” Gerritsen said her goal for the rest of this semester is to work out any operational kinks that crop up while gathering data on user numbers and behavior. Starting next school year, she plans to incorporate more programming and foster more partnerships with the campus community, which could include student orientations and campus tours stopping by The Makery or holding academic classes in the space. “We’ll see how much of that can happen by the fall,” Gerritsen said, “but it’s going to grow as time goes on.” The Makery is open Monday through Thursday from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Friday from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. The coordinators are seeking donations of craft supplies, office supplies or “anything that you can use to make stuff with,” as Gerritsen put it. Media Contact Brian Hiro, Communications Specialist bhiro@csusm.edu | Office: 760-750-7306

The final spring Arts & Lectures event will feature Jason Perez, San Diego poet laureate. Through poetry, performance and video, San Diego poet laureate Jason Magabo Perez explores the poetics of memory as an act of anticolonial future-making. Perez is also an essayist, performer and author of a book of poetry and prose titled “This is for the mostless” (2017) and the forthcoming book-length poem "I ask about what falls away." He is an associate professor and director of ethnic studies at CSUSM. He will be joined by DJ, music producer, performer and longtime collaborator Shammy Dee.   The event is at 6 p.m. on April 15 in the USU Ballroom. Reserve tickets online via the Arts & Lectures website. The event is co-sponsored by the Ethnic Studies program.     CSUSM’s Arts & Lectures series offers a diverse lineup of artistic, cultural and scholarly events every semester based on input and proposals from students, faculty, staff, alumni and community members. Attendees can reserve tickets online via the Arts & Lectures website.    What: Arts & Lectures event “Jason Perez” Who: Jason Perez, San Diego poet laureate When: 6 p.m., Monday, April 15 Where: USU Ballroom  Cost: Free for CSUSM students, faculty, staff and alumni; $5 for community members Tickets: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/jason-magabo-perez-tickets-795746708827?aff=oddtdtcreator  Information: Arts and Lectures website Media Contact Eric Breier, Public Affairs Specialist ebreier@csusm.edu | Office: 760-750-7314

By now, almost everyone knows that the United States will experience a solar eclipse on Monday, April 8. Residents of 13 states are in the so-called “path of totality,” meaning that they will have a chance to view a total solar eclipse, in which the moon completely covers the sun. California isn’t one of those 13 lucky states, so the best we’ll see is a partial eclipse, which isn’t as dramatic but can still be plenty fun. And Cal State San Marcos is getting in on the action. The College of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics will host a solar eclipse viewing event on Monday from 10 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. outside the University Student Union. There will be a solar telescope and sunspotters (weather permitting). Guests can make their own pinhole camera, create a moon crater and learn about research projects that engineering and physics students are involved in. The physics department will provide free solar eclipse glasses, since you should never look directly at the sun during an eclipse. The event is being organized by Tara Fetherolf, a visiting assistant professor in physics who specializes in astronomy. In San Marcos, the maximum coverage of the sun will be 53%, and the time of maximum eclipse will be 11:12 a.m. This will be the last chance to see a total solar eclipse in the continental U.S. until 2044. Media Contact Brian Hiro, Communications Specialist bhiro@csusm.edu | Office: 760-750-7306