Jaye Brown, academic director of fashion programs at the Art Institute of California – San Diego, offers options for your inner fashion designer Tell me about the Art Institute. What does it offer? The Art …

Dez, 25-year-old new father, makes the most of his not-a-dream-job. What is your dream job? My dream job would be no job. It would be to just gig my band, do Chi-Gong, martial arts and …

The Good Son: A.B. Grizzwald sits on a stool in his friend’s Golden Hill garage studio. Though he claims this is where he paints occasionally, everything in the studio — paint, canvases, radio, couch, rug, …

Last month, 30 women graduated from the Home Childcare Program organized by Horn of Africa and the International Rescue Committee, two non-profit organizations in City Heights. The 27-hour program consists of 15 hours of state-mandated …

After three and a half years as a freelance graphic designer, Monique Jenkins went corporate. She shares her perspective on the advantages and challenges of both. Tell me what you were doing before you found …

On Saturday, March 5, City Heights residents protested governor Jerry Brown’s plan to abolish redevelopment agencies. The rally, organized by the Fox Canyon Neighborhood Association, took place in Auburn Park, a site chosen for its …

Colleen Lanin, founder of TravelMamas.com, blogged her way to a new job. Where were you when this whole thing started? I had been taking writing classes for years but had never submitted anything for publication. …

Marcy Thorne’s transcribing business started at her kitchen table. Let’s go back to the beginning. How did you get started as a transcriber? About 25 years ago, shortly after I moved to San Diego, I …

Bella has just finished telling me that, yes, she absolutely does believe in racial color-blindness. “I live it every day,” she says. “I’m married to a white man, and I don’t look at him and …

Sweaty boys aged between 7 and 27 filled the gymnasium at San Diego United Training Center on Sunday, February 13. The boys jumped and flipped over mats and off walls to the sound of thumping …

Jacqueline Schneider, founder of The Mint Collective, a San Diego-based creative consulting agency, explains the importance of personal branding. What is personal branding? Branding is what draws someone to a company or individual. It’s about …

For 23 years, my life story began at four months, when I landed in my mother’s arms wrapped in a thin blanket and bearing a handwritten letter that read, “Congratulations to you both, the new …

Helen Chang explains how she makes a living as a ghostwriter. Let’s start with a little information about your background. Schooling, work history, and all that. I have always loved writing. I started writing poems …

Oakland-based filmmakers Carl D. Brown and Sean Donnelly arrived in San Diego on Wednesday, January 19, to film footage for a documentary on the Young Marines, a training program for children aged 8 to 18. …

At 10:25 a.m. on the last Wednesday in October, the auditorium at Adams Elementary School in Normal Heights buzzes with the voices of parents and children waiting for the student-recognition assembly to begin. The parents …

John Galasan turned his hobby into a second job that pays. First, tell me about your day job. I work for Union Bank in Mutual Funds. I like it because it’s stable, and because I …

At the sound of a dinging bicycle bell, the children at Lulu’s Montessori in City Heights run to the screen door overlooking Van Dyke Avenue and shout, “Bolis! Bolis!” For some of the tiny tots …

Think you want to be a hairstylist? Thu Nguyen explains what it takes. First, tell me how you’ve been in this line of work. I’ve been doing it for 12 years. What kind of schooling …

A LITTLE OLD-SCHOOL GLAMOUR “What does he do, this man you seek?…He covets…And how do we begin to covet, Clarice?…We begin by coveting what we see every day.” — Dr. Hannibal Lecter, The Silence of …

Please tell me briefly what you do for job seekers. What kinds of services do you provide? I help job seekers make sense of that daunting task of looking for a job. I help them …

Children wound up from the morning’s thunder and lightning crowd under the lunch arbor at Chesterton Elementary in Linda Vista. Their voices echo under the tin roof that protects them from the light, misty rain. …

José Lopez, president of the Fox Canyon Neighborhood Association in City Heights, started a letter-writing campaign to lobby city-council members to support a grant proposal that would address a problem corner at 50th Street and …

Sherry Luft is a participant and founding member of the Job Seekers Club at South Metro Career Center. Let’s start with what line of work you’re in. How and when did you become unemployed? I …

Sammy Gonzales didn’t speak until she was four years old. In her first two years of school, she was considered “slow,” often completing assignments long after all the other children had finished. Sometimes she drifted …

Shirley Cabri-Rumrill, Food Service Labor Supervisor for San Diego Unified School District, explains what to expect as a part-time substitute for school lunch service. First, let me ask, are you really hiring, or just accepting …

Ten minutes into the second quarter of the Chargers’ second preseason game, a crowd in the end-zone View section of Qualcomm Stadium stands up to shout, “Raiders suck! Raiders suck!” But the Chargers are playing …

Tayari Howard, late-night radio personality on Smooth Jazz 98.1 FM, recently slept in a tent at Liberty Station for two weeks. Every evening, from October 9 through October 22, he left the radio station at …

Bonnie Whiting Smith begins the Palomar College afternoon “concert hour” with a three-minute John Cage piece entitled “A Flower.” The piece consists of melodic singing and the sound of Smith’s knuckles and fingertips tapping on …

Mark Erwin, founder of Erwin Financial in La Jolla, offers advice on the do’s and don’ts of spending money during hard times. Please tell me a little bit about your company. We do customized, client-focused, …

Ranessa Ashton, public information officer for San Diego Continuing Education, explains with the program has to offer. First, please tell me about the Continuing Education program. Are the classes really free? We’re the adult education …

Interior designer Nina Dayton discusses the pros and cons of working for commission. First, tell me how long you’ve worked in the field of sales and interior design. It’s been about five years now. How …

Sandra Martinez, a 30-year-old mother of two, is back in school. Tell me what you were doing for work two years ago. I was waiting tables at a café in Normal Heights, and I was …

Over the phone, Maureen Slater sounds like a soccer mom. She uses words like “jammies” instead of pajamas and laughs at her own jokes (“I’m smarter than my husband, ha-ha-ha”), some of which aren’t really …

Samuel Johnson has re-entered the workforce – and it’s taking some adjustment. Tell me about your previous work life. What did you do, for how long, and how much did you make? I’ve been a …

Kim Mohiuddin is a nationally certified résumé writer, president of both MovinOnUpResumes.com and Authentic Executive Careers, and Certification Chair for the National Résumé Writers’ Association. Why don’t you start by telling me exactly what you …

Carol Williams — San Diego civic organist and artistic director of the Spreckels Organ Society — hates the heat. She also hates it when the wind blows her hair in her eyes and when June …

After a year and a half of layoff, Reggie Vaughn has finally found work. Tell me about your layoff? I was a truck driver for a large freight company. I’d been working there since 2005. …

Every May, after the tasseled hats have fallen to the ground and the graduation parties have died down, hundreds of thousands of new graduates enter the workforce. Or at least that’s the plan. Late last …

Amber Elrod is the regional manager for Kelly Services, a human resources provider with three locations in San Diego County. Is temp work picking up or slowing down in the current economy? In San Diego, …

“There’s no reason our neighborhood can’t look like Hillcrest or North Park,” says Fox Canyon Neighborhood Association president José Lopez. During the association’s monthly meeting on July 13, some of the members voiced their desire …

I grew up in a religion that loved everything I would be taught to disdain in graduate school: America, authority, marriage, motherhood, and divine revelation. My father was a history-reading intellectual who treated me like …

Shauna Riisoe works at the South Metro Career Center, one of several one-stop centers operated by the San Diego Workforce Partnership. What’s your role at the center? In terms of daily assignments, we all switch …

Jung-Ho Pak and Orchestra Novaban keep St. Paul’s Cathedral on their list of venues (along with Sherwood and Qualcomm auditoriums) despite a multitude of problems that the venue presents. For starters, the lack of parking …

On Halloween 2009, around 7:00 p.m., a sugar-crazed group of costumed children and their adult chaperones works its way through one of those North County neighborhoods where the rows of prim two-story homes are painted …

“The world is so strange,” says Lauren Kinhan, the “new girl” of New York Voices who has been with the quartet for 18 of its 22 years. Kinhan and the other three members have almost …

Afra Khan, a grad student who recently emigrated from Hyderabad, India, wears jeans and a long-sleeved gray T-shirt that says SDSU across the front. Before I spend an afternoon with her in a tiny two-bedroom …

From the Killing Fields to the Noodle House When Mark Lau was ten years old, he couldn’t add one plus one. On the day he began the fourth grade at Adams Elementary School in City …

“I went rock climbing this morning,” says Daniel Shapira of the Bitwise Operators, a “laptop ensemble” from the University of California San Diego. “I went skiing last weekend,” says Cooper Baker, another member. Here’s the …

“Everybody wants to play in a group that has an international career,” says Luiz Mantovani of the Brazilian Guitar Quartet. “Some people think, ‘Wow, you go everywhere in the world. It must be great.’ But …

When Marc-André Hamelin walked onstage at the Museum of Contemporary Art’s Sherwood Auditorium on December 18, only the high shine of his shoes looked the part of a world-renowned, super-virtuoso pianist. His rumpled black suit …