New Student Welcome Convocation*

While this campus ceremony has gone through many iterations over recent years, the goal we would achieve time and again has remained: to formally welcome the incoming first year and transfer students of the University of California, San Diego.

Highlights & Achievements:

-Managed the experience, front-of-house, seating, wayfinding, catering and ingress/egress of up to 6,500 attendees

-Oversee ingress/egress, security, wayfinding and communications to ensure the timely and screened arrival of 6,500 attendees in 90 minutes

-Designed and produced the current format of the event in 2024. The redesign was thoughtful in strategy and would allow for the activation of 80% of the attendees at 20% of the cost. The new format was a collaborative response to stakeholder input which was well received from both students and faculty.

-Facilitated a strategic partnership with Amazon Prime providing swag bags containing product valued at $10,000 to distribute at scale as part of the attendee experience in 2023. This added component would be worked into the aforementioned ingress and screening related focuses that this event requires

-From 2017 to 2023, this event was held two days after Day One Fest, sharing key resources as a budget strategy allowing us to also produce the annual welcome back festival at similar scale (6,500+ attendees) less than 48 hours prior.

Roles:
Producer (2024-Present)
Operations Manager (2018-2023)
Front of House Manager (2017)

*Title History:
New Student Mixer (2025-Present)
Picnic for Faculty & New Students (2024)
New Student Welcome Convocation (2017-2023)