{"id":16792,"date":"2026-05-04T11:30:55","date_gmt":"2026-05-04T11:30:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/lavie\/?p=16792"},"modified":"2026-05-06T17:57:03","modified_gmt":"2026-05-06T17:57:03","slug":"turning-a-hobby-into-a-career","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/lavie\/2026\/05\/04\/turning-a-hobby-into-a-career\/","title":{"rendered":"Turning a hobby into a\u00a0career\u00a0\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"dslc-theme-content\"><div id=\"dslc-theme-content-inner\">\n<p>By Ella&nbsp;Weidenhammer&nbsp;\u201927, staff writer&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In the department of Design, Media and Technology&nbsp;(DMT),&nbsp;there are many different directions&nbsp;students&nbsp;may take.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Autumn&nbsp;Garges&nbsp;started out a little bit different than&nbsp;the department\u2019s&nbsp;average&nbsp;digital&nbsp;media&nbsp;student. She&nbsp;began&nbsp;as an&nbsp;education&nbsp;major and Spanish minor.&nbsp;During her sophomore year, she decided to make the change&nbsp;to&nbsp;digital&nbsp;media&nbsp;while keeping her Spanish minor which turned out to be part of her proudest&nbsp;accomplishments&nbsp;while attending&nbsp;LVC.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cChanging my major and excelling in a program that was new territory was one of them, as well as the team championships our&nbsp;women&#8217;s&nbsp;track and cross-country teams were able to win during my senior year,\u201d&nbsp;Garges&nbsp;said. \u201cContributing to those victories is such an amazing feeling.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The senior captain played&nbsp;a major role&nbsp;in the success of the cross-country team,&nbsp;winning the program\u2019s first Middle Atlantic Conference Championship as well as being the anchor for&nbsp;the women\u2019s&nbsp;4&#215;800 team that brought home gold last spring.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cI was especially proud of one specific relay my junior year&nbsp;&#8211; we&nbsp;were head-to-head with Messiah in a 4&#215;800 meter&nbsp;track relay,\u201d&nbsp;Garges&nbsp;said. \u201cI was the last teammate to get the baton side-by-side with Messiah, and I was able to hold off their runner and bring LVC the gold. That is a moment I will cherish forever. My sport has taught me so much about myself and my abilities. The mental aspect of running has shown me that my range of abilities is so much higher when I believe in myself.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Being a part of the cross country, indoor track and field and outdoor track and field&nbsp;teams,&nbsp;Garges&nbsp;has&nbsp;gathered a bunch of&nbsp;memories.&nbsp;Every year,&nbsp;Garges&nbsp;and the cross-country team&nbsp;took&nbsp;a road trip to&nbsp;Ohiopyle&nbsp;where the team&nbsp;rented&nbsp;a house to cook meals, do workouts, and play games with everyone. She is quick to say these trips&nbsp;were&nbsp;the&nbsp;best.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cCoach&nbsp;O\u2019Brien, my cross country and track coach, has had the biggest impact on my experience.\u201d&nbsp;Garges&nbsp;said. \u201cBefore I even arrived at LVC, he saw abilities in me that I&nbsp;didn&#8217;t&nbsp;even believe in myself. I will always appreciate the way he supported me and helped me progress in my sport in ways I never would have imagined.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Garges&nbsp;helped&nbsp;to&nbsp;create content for the&nbsp;teams\u2019&nbsp;social media accounts as well as&nbsp;to&nbsp;create&nbsp;content for&nbsp;her&nbsp;own personal accounts.&nbsp;She\u2019s&nbsp;even had the opportunity to collaborate with bigger brands.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cI have always loved taking photos and videos and using editing software to turn it into some form of storytelling.\u201d&nbsp;Garges&nbsp;said. \u201cWhen I realized I could turn that into a career, I experimented with many forms of content and turned that into a job.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>After graduation,&nbsp;Garges&nbsp;will&nbsp;intern&nbsp;at&nbsp;Turnstone Creative Marketing Agency in Bethlehem, while also continuing her freelance content creation.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cI would tell my teammates not&nbsp;to&nbsp;wish away their time,\u201d she said.&nbsp;\u201cI can think back to days&nbsp;when&nbsp;I really did not want to be running in negative temperatures, or I was so nervous to race, and I just&nbsp;couldn&#8217;t&nbsp;wait to graduate,&nbsp;but the time truly flies by so fast. By the time&nbsp;it&#8217;s&nbsp;almost over,&nbsp;I&#8217;m&nbsp;wishing I could do it all over again.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"mh-excerpt\"><p>By Ella&nbsp;Weidenhammer&nbsp;\u201927, staff writer&nbsp; In the department of Design, Media and Technology&nbsp;(DMT),&nbsp;there are many different directions&nbsp;students&nbsp;may take.&nbsp; Autumn&nbsp;Garges&nbsp;started out a little bit different than&nbsp;the department\u2019s&nbsp;average&nbsp;digital&nbsp;media&nbsp;student. She&nbsp;began&nbsp;as an&nbsp;education&nbsp;major and Spanish minor.&nbsp;During her sophomore year, she decided <a class=\"mh-excerpt-more\" href=\"https:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/lavie\/2026\/05\/04\/turning-a-hobby-into-a-career\/\" title=\"Turning a hobby into a\u00a0career\u00a0\u00a0\">[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":16705,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,5],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-16792","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-campus-news","8":"category-features"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/lavie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16792","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/lavie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/lavie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/lavie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/lavie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16792"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/lavie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16792\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16793,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/lavie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16792\/revisions\/16793"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/lavie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16705"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/lavie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16792"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/lavie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16792"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/lavie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16792"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}