College campuses foster vast ranges of talent, and the goal of a college degree is typically to find work that is both in line with one’s gifts and tangible enough to generate revenue. The course startup that is Creatives 230 has worked to carefully grow talent while building an artistic family within multiple disciplines, pushing that family to create intentional and profitable works through a collaborative process.

Piloted by Professor Jennifer Drumgoole in the spring semester of 2023, Creatives 230 is a course that pushes creative minds to their limits while enhancing the businesses of both students and professionals in the world.

“This is about — for me — helping to understand that there’s all these ideas of what business is and what entrepreneurship is, and they’re all kind of like weird labels. You kind of have to know all of this to be an artist out in the world. You have to know how to network, promote yourself and put together a plan,” said Professor Drumgoole.

The course started with a few students who were carefully selected by Drumgoole based on their various talents in this school year’s fall semester. The range of skills in the group spanned cinematography, video editing, creative writing, visual arts and beyond to create a complete team of creative minds that strengthen each other.

Creatives 230 is now home to about fifteen students in the first running semester of the course and is rapidly expanding, gaining members within the school with multiple specialties.

The course process consists of the students meeting with possible clients and hearing their pitches and visions for what their brand is and getting down to what exactly the client needs help doing. This is followed by a series of meetings between the students of every creative niche to pitch possible approaches to achieving their client’s goals and putting forth a plan to complete that for their clients.

The course, currently identified as a ‘special topics’ class, has a loose curriculum that allows the students to think on the fly and do work on a case-by-case basis. Drumgoole is working on outlining the curriculum in a way that can make it a permanent course that grows over the years.

“It’s a big team collaboration actually… I think the great thing about this space is that brainstorming everyone’s pitches helps to blossom the other’s ideas — leading to us all coming together and deciding what the best choice for the client would be,” said Brian Seay, a member of the video team in Creatives 230.

The course operates out of the Business Hall in room 230, a space that was previously a storage unit in the building. Drumgoole and her students spend days re-organizing and designing the space to be the nucleus of a creative lab, while not making it feel too much like a classroom.

“I’m both an RTF student and a Marketing student, so it’s nice to be able to merge those two worlds. I’m able to be around my peers who are business-oriented and have these ideas but can’t bring them to life and also be around my peers who have the creative ideas but might not be able to make it a business venture,” said Michael Rambo, one of the founding members of Creatives 230.

While early, the creative entrepreneurs of Creatives 230 have put business plans in place for business that include Je’Amani Plus Size Fashion & Accessories, Puff Pal, Brianna Marie Cosmetics and Bobica Bars among others, all in the collective’s early stages.

For more information about the course and how to get connected, you can visit their Instagram page @creatives_230.

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