(Watch excerpts from Amy Hahn’s video interview with Mira Shupe here.)

In our new Student of the Month feature, developed 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’s Student of the Month is Mira Shupe, a student in her fourth year at California Polytechnic State University (Cal Poly) majoring in Graphic Communication, with a concentration in Graphics for packaging. Associate professor Dina Vees, on her nomination form, said of Mira, “Mira is meticulous in her work, consistently demonstrating attention to detail and a commitment to excellence. She is an excellent problem solver, approaching challenges with creativity and determination. Her willingness to help others reflects strong teamwork and empathy, while her excellent communication skills makes her a respected and effective collaborator among peers and teachers alike.”

As she embarked on her university career, like many students her age, the trick was reconciling various interests and picking a course of study.

“I’m from Seattle originally, and I was always an artist growing up,” said Mira. “I really loved graphic design, typography, letter work, but I also loved science, technology, STEM, and I had a hard time figuring out what I wanted to do with all of those things.” It was the discovery of Cal Poly’s Graphic Communication program that led her to see how all of her interests could work together.

“It really put it in a more tangible, more applicable sense,” she said. “I was able to combine all those interests and still get to work with graphic design. I’m actually developing a really tangible skill set that I could apply to a lot more than just the creative fields.”

As she moved through her coursework, she felt increasingly drawn to the printing process. “As I started taking classes in graphic communication, I realized that my favorite part of it were the printing classes,” she said. “The major also includes a lot of stuff about UX/UI design management, and we have a graphic reproduction concentration, but all of my favorite classes were working with the printers.”

And that, in turn, led her to packaging. “Getting to design stuff and actually manufacture the plates and run the press and make a real product start to finish was my favorite part,” she said, “and I thought that packaging was the industry that really helps keep print alive nowadays. People interact with packaging every day, and there are a lot of opportunities to work with sustainability.”

In 2024, Mira was part of a team of Cal Poly students who took a “field trip” to drupa in Düsseldorf, Germany, and helped out the WhatTheyThink/drupa Daily team. For a young student, it was, said Mira, “a life-changing experience.” “I’ve never really been out of the country, so getting to see Europe, even just for a short amount of time, and getting to see the entire industry come together in basically one huge room was completely eye-opening,” she said. “People don’t see the amount of innovation that’s happening, whether it’s with packaging or wide format or apparel. And it was a jam-packed three days of getting a full rundown of everything that is happening that I would be entering into someday.”

Last year, Mira interned with KP Corp., a 90-year-old full-service marketing services provider. “They do a lot of direct mail, medical pamphlets, and manuals so I really got to oversee the whole process of starting with the client up to getting the final prints actually shipped out,” she said. “They let me pick my own path in a lot of ways and gave me the opportunity to meet every different team and walk around choosing where I wanted to help out. So I got to get the big picture and the small picture every single day and meet a lot of really cool people.”

Mira graduates this June, so what does she see as her job prospects? “It’s hard to decide on a specific position,” she said, “but I know that I love process development, I love being creative, and I also love working with people. Hopefully I can find something in a project coordinator or project manager position or maybe even sales.”

A major concern for Mira—as it is for many of her generation—is sustainability, and that is one area in particular where she would like to make a difference, especially in packaging. “Packaging is one of the most commonly ‘wasted’ products,” she said. “Not ‘wasted’ because it has served its purpose, but it’s a thing that we throw away. It’s not something you keep normally. So hopefully there can be innovation with sustainability in the future and we can think out of the box of not just reducing how we do things, but also just reducing the amount of things we produce in general.

“It’s a really rapidly changing industry,” added Mira, “and with the technology we’re seeing now, with AI and with digital printing, there are just so many opportunities for change. And that’s why I think this program at Cal Poly really supports the ability to adapt and be on top of the modern day and how things might look in the future.”

We wish Mira the best of the success 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.