Jessica Romick, a fourth-year design major with a focus in graphic design, has been creative throughout her whole life. From painting to embroidery, Jessica has not only developed a love for the arts but also extensive skills in her field. Jessica transferred to UC Davis with an associate's degree in graphic design, hoping to expand her horizons in professional creative fields. This past summer, Jessica partook in Study Abroad, achieving her art-based goals and making unforgettable memories.

Design in Europe

During the summer of her junior year, Jessica participated in the study abroad program Design in Europe. The program takes students across Europe to learn about a variety of creative media while visiting professional design sites and studios, allowing them to delve into the innovation of European art, architecture, and design. Jessica discovered the Design in Europe program during a guest speaker presentation of the program in her Design 1 class. The class provided space for multiple guest speakers, including Professor Tim McNeil, who presented on the study abroad, inspiring Jessica and her friend to participate in the program.

To fund her study abroad experience, Jessica used the resources on the Funding page of the Global Learning Hub. Jessica received a Global Learning Award, a Study Abroad Award, and a US Passport Grant Program Award, all contributing to her time in Europe. She also shared that Passport Services at the UC Davis Business Office greatly helped her with her study abroad process. The office assisted her and other recipients in filling out their passport forms, scheduling their appointments, and easing the process of acquiring a passport.

Jessica's focus during the program was on museum exhibition design, a new area of the arts for her that she was excited to delve into. Her draw to museum design lay in her curiosity about how museums work behind the scenes, along with the various differences in US and European museum design. Her two most memorable experiences were visiting the city of York and the Lava Center in Hvolsvöllur, Iceland. For York, she expressed that this was her favorite out of all the cities they visited due to the overall ambiance of the city. For the Lava Center, the museum stood out the most due to its creative design, which simulated being inside the volcanoes and having opportunities to interact with different aspects of the museum. Additionally, through all the traveling and site visits, Jessica got a chance to get to know and bond with her fellow Aggies in the program. She stated, “I’ve also seen a handful of the people who went on the trip with me on campus, and it’s fun to stop and catch up with them for a bit.”

One of her biggest takeaways from the program was its opening of doors to career paths she would have never looked into if she had not participated in study abroad. Exhibition design pulls from multiple arts disciplines, from graphic design to exhibit development. For Jessica, participating in the program was eye-opening in discovering this career path, especially when speaking to current designers and networking for her future endeavors. 

Transfer Experience

As a transfer student, Jessica wanted to jump on every opportunity that came her way, whether that was jobs, activities, or programs like study abroad. Jessica stated that her advice for transfer students is “to not be afraid to actively guide your future. Make friends with your professors, even if it’s scary. Be brave and ask questions about opportunities even if you think you’re only vaguely interested in them. And if you’re specifically wanting to study abroad, sign up for the Global Learning Hub’s newsletter. There was a bunch of important dates they would send reminders for.”

A New Exhibit: Visual Journals 2010–2024 

This upcoming winter, Jessica and other Design in Europe students will have their journals showcased in an exhibit entitled Visual Journals 2010–2024. A partnership between the UC Davis Department of Design and Global Affairs, the exhibit aims to celebrate the experiences of Design in Europe students and their visual journals. Visual journals are like traditional travel journals, but instead of written entries, they contain sketches, hand lettering, photographs, magazine cutouts, and printed ephemera.

The exhibit draws on the experience of Design in Europe students from 2010 to 2024, representing treasured moments in time as they experienced the program. Jessica recalled that the journals she and her peers had to create were a challenging aspect of the program as many students had packed schedules on top of filling 6 to 8 journal pages daily. Jessica referred to these journals as their “Dream Journals” because of the variety of entries and the often-compressed time they had to work on them. Like Jessica, many of the showcased student journals created long-lasting memories, which are documented in the snippets of time that these visual journals hold. The exhibit will be in the Design Museum in Cruess Hall and the lobby of the International Center from January 21 to April 25, 2025.