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Recently graduated with B.F.A. with a concentration in Graphic and Interactive Design, Amanda M. Ly was an enthusiastic contributor to the arts community throughout her time at Monmouth University. Her energetic and humorous personality was matched only by her design portfolio of colorful, insightful, and adoring creatures. During her last year, she worked with Marilyn Schlossbach, an entrepreneur in the area, to develop community-based outreach programs at Langosta Lounge in Asbury Park. Perhaps most impressive are the two children’s board books and plush characters that Ly created with her original Bungaloo Monsters^© theme. These age-based books, intended to help children identify their emotions, are beautifully illustrated with her original illustrations. Upon graduating with a 3.78 GPA, Ly won the coveted “Outstanding B.F.A. in Graphic Design” award at her commencement ceremony. Upon graduation, Ly headed to a post-graduate internship at Alex Brands (the maker of Slinky^®) located in Fairfield, NJ. There, she hopes to find out even more about applying her art background to the toy and game industry. 

Melissa Thomas has been an invaluable resource and contributor to the new 3D Sculpture program at Monmouth University. As a lab tech, she balances seamlessly between the digital and handmade arenas. Already functioning at a professional level, Missy is one of a new breed of creative technologists—the kind who are able to operate 3D printers and any Adobe program while still making clay by hand. As with any creative technologist, she is constantly open to learning new methods and tools, and applying them in innovative ways. When something is not working properly, she researches the issue and often solves it on her own. In the classroom, Missy produces high-quality work and helps foster a collaborative and positive environment throughout the arts community at Monmouth. She has brought these qualities into her leadership role in the Monmouth Review Club, where she served as club president during the 2016-2017 academic year. 

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Casey Trautwein is a recent graduate of Monmouth University who proved that students can leverage a degree in the arts to make a positive impact in the world through personal activism. He graduated from the University with a B.A. in Art with a concentration in Photography. Trautwein was able to successfully transform his interests in documentary photography, video, travel, and issue-oriented environmentalism into a career in documentary work.  To begin his professional career after college graduation, Trautwein planned to travel across the globe to Thailand where he would begin working for Conserve National Forests. In the role, he would be documenting the organization’s efforts to halt deforestation and protect wildlife in remote, northern regions of the country. Trautwein was excited to begin using his educational credentials into a career that fuses his love of art with his motivation to improve environmental conditions throughout the world.

While studying at Monmouth for her B.F.A. with a concentration in Graphic and Interactive Design, Brittany Bowling managed to snag a Disney Professional Internship with ABC Television in New York. “This internship fully convinced me that I wanted to pursue a career in entertainment,” recalled Bowling, who realized that she wanted to produce movie trailers.

A week after graduating, she packed up her car and traveled across the country to Los Angeles in order to follow her creative dreams in entertainment marketing. Bowling now works at Wild Card AV as a motion graphics coordinator. There, she has had the pleasure of contributing to movie trailers for Spider-Man: Homecoming, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales, Alien: Covenant, and many more.

“It’s truly been a dream come true,” Bowling said of her experiences. “None of it would have been possible without my Monmouth experience. I owe it all to my amazing professors that pushed me every day to reach my full potential.”