We are inaugurating a new regular WhatTheyThink feature: the Student of the Month. In partnership with the Print and Graphics Scholarship Foundation (PGSF), we profile a promising student in a graphic communications or related program. The goal is to raise awareness of graphic communications programs, as well as help students get a “leg up” on entering the industry after graduation. 

This month, we spoke to Anna Frias, a student in her third year at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. She is majoring in Graphic Communication, concentrating in Design Reproduction Technology. In her nomination letter, Professor and Chair Colleen Twomey wrote, “Anna Frias exemplifies the Learn by Doing philosophy at Cal Poly through her exceptional leadership, creative excellence, and dedication to both academic and professional pursuits. As a Graphic Communication student, Anna has distinguished herself as a dynamic leader who seamlessly bridges technical expertise with strategic communication skills.”

So what attracted Anna to print?

“I really like the tangibility of print,” she said. She was initially attracted to graphic design, but found Graphic Communication a better fit. “It still lets me be creative in the sense of graphic design, but I do more like the technicality of print and the mechanics that go into it. I really love being able to work with the machines and think technically about how I need to set things up so it prints correctly and all those nitty-gritty things that you wouldn’t get with graphic design.”

And thus the concentration in Design Reproduction Technology.

“It’s similar to graphic design, but it’s more, again, that technicality,” she said. “It’s kind of like prepress—I’m learning how to set up design files for prepress, but I still get to be creative in design.” For example, she said, “if a graphic designer sends me their beautiful artwork, it would be my turn to make sure it’s print-ready.”

Anna’s hands-on experience involved serving as General Manager of University Graphic Systems (UGS), Cal Poly’s student-run printing enterprise, where she oversees operations, manages a team, and ensures the delivery of high-quality printing services to the campus community, including business cards, posters, flyers, trifolds, specialty printing, screen printing on shirts, direct-to-film shirts. “We do stickers, we do wide format—anything,” she added.

It’s a position not without its challenges, one of the biggest being one that most university printing departments contend with: yearly turnover.

“Every year, a whole new team of people comes in,” she said. “So the biggest challenge was learning everything, figuring out how we’re going to make it run as smoothly as possible now that all of us are completely new.”

Anna also serves as the Social Media Manager for both the Noyce School of Applied Computing and the Bailey College of Science and Mathematics, where she is responsible for increasing the visibility of Cal Poly’s STEM programs. “I feel like that gives me a unique perspective on understanding how to address a target audience and maintaining a professional manner,” she said. “It is a really great way to learn how to communicate to science and math students in a way that will be engaging but still maintain a professional presence since I’m representing the college.”

Outside of the university, she also executed TikTok campaigns for the Print and Graphics Scholarship Foundation (PGSF), taking advantage of emerging platforms and helping modernize the foundation’s digital presence.

When Anna graduates in 2027, what kind of job is she hoping to land? “My dream job? I don’t know…,” she said with a laugh. Then there is the tyranny of choices. “An ultimate goal of mine is one day I want to be a freelance, independent contractor,” she said. “I would like to get there one day. I don’t know exactly—I love everything about print, so I don’t know what I want to do.

“I think the ideal world for me,” she added, “would be something on the prepress side of graphic communication, but also something in marketing as well, because I do like design and understanding print collateral for marketing.”

She has also found that extracurricular jobs and internships are helping narrow down what she wants to do—or at least what she doesn’t want to do. “I don’t really want to go down packaging route,” she admitted, “but also I could change my mind. With print, there are so many options. So my main goal for graduation is to just start figuring it out.”

A California native—she is from Temecula, near San Diego—her goal after graduation is to stay on the West Coast, preferably in Southern California. “But I know there are a lot of good opportunities in the Bay Area, so I’m trying to be open-minded.”

Professor Twomey had added in her nomination letter, “Anna represents the next generation: technically skilled, digitally savvy, entrepreneurial, and committed to modernizing how we communicate the value of graphic communication to new audiences.”

As for Anna’s own perceptions of the print industry, she feels that her generation has a lot to offer printing companies. “I feel like print is constantly evolving, especially with AI coming in, but also just the machinery in and of itself,” she said. “And I would like to see more of letting my generation come in and implement new ideas because I see a lot of companies that are just stuck in their ways. To be successful and to keep up with what’s happening with technology, I would like to see them being more open-minded and taking into account what we have to say.”

We wish Anna the best of the success in her remaining years at Cal Poly, and as she heads out into the print industry.

Are you an educator with potential Students of the Month? We’re calling on professors and instructors to nominate students they feel are worthy of recognition and whom they feel have the potential to be tomorrow’s printing industry leaders. A nomination form is available via here. Educators are welcome to nominate as many students as they see fit. Feel free to reach out to me at [email protected] with any questions.