For some University of Virginia students, career opportunities beckoned. Others sought to save money or racked up enough credits to graduate early. A few took a little extra time, for many reasons.

In all, more than 600 Wahoos crossed the academic finish line this month, becoming December graduates. Whatever their motivations, many count the connections made with their peers and others as among their biggest takeaways from UVA.

Jennifer Zhou, a computer science major from Northern Virginia, capped her time at UVA by working on Lighting of the Lawn 2018. She served on the marketing committee that came up with the event’s “Brighter Together” tagline and created the logo of the hand holding a lightbulb.

“I was very honored and excited to be on the Lighting of the Lawn marketing committee, which allowed me to be involved in the graphic design for the event,” said Zhou, who also made a graphic image of the Rotunda at dusk to use for social media branding and video.

Jennifer Zhou, a computer science major, worked on graphic design while on Grounds, and heads to work for Capital One as a software engineer. (Contributed photo)

Zhou also worked as a graphic design intern at the UVA Career Center for about two years, helping with the office’s brand and various events, including the externship program, community stickers and more. She also designed the graphics for the monthly Stall Seat Journal from UVA Student Health, a newsletter posted in the University’s public rest rooms that provides accurate data about healthy behaviors.

Along with building relationships, Zhou said another thing she’ll take with her is “the motivation to always try new things.”

Her next new thing will be returning to Northern Virginia to work for Capital One as a software engineer.

Tia Nichols, who’s from a military family living now in Newport News, will keep Charlottesville as her base in the spring. Along with continuing an internship with New City Arts Welcome Gallery in Charlottesville, she’ll participate in a collaborative project with Detroit-based printmaker Amos Paul Kennedy Jr. He came to town for a week in November as the inaugural Riccio Artist-in-Residency, sponsored by UVA and the Virginia Center for the Book. He will return in March.

“I will be traveling to assist him with printing several thousand posters for his installation here in Charlottesville,” Nichols said. “I love visual art and practice printmaking and painting, as I plan to pursue art therapy and professional printmaking and painting in the future.”

Studio art major Tia Nichols will participate in a collaborative project with Detroit-based printmaker Amos Paul Kennedy Jr.

When she came to UVA, Nichols had placed out of the foreign language requirement in Spanish, so she chose to take American Sign Language – “because I’ve always had a passion for language,” she said. She minored in ASL and deaf studies and hopes to incorporate sign language in her future art therapy practice to those with communication and developmental disorders.

“ASL is an amazing, underappreciated language that is valuable and rich to all those who use it,” she said.

Nichols said that her University experience helped her become independent and practice resilience and perseverance.

“UVA taught me that no one can get you to where you want to go except for you,” she said, “so my education has taught me to fight for success and to keep pushing, despite how difficult the combination of assignments, work and life can be.”

Tia Nichols will continue working on printmaking and plans to pursue art therapy in the future.

The studio art major said when she realized her credits from study abroad and Advanced Placement courses added up to be more than what she needed, she decided to graduate early. “Plus, I’ll be saving so much more money,” she said. 

Josh Palmer also plans to stick around town in the spring to practice the art he discovered while pursuing an American studies major at the University: filmmaking. His love for movies led him to take “Cinema as an Art Form” with Matthew Marshall, and he worked on a short film in history professor Claudrena Harold’s course, “Black Fire,” about African-American student history at UVA.

There he met fellow student Alazar Aklilu, and they decided to participate in the Adrenaline Film Project in the fall of 2017. Although he was busy with classes, he thought he could devote one weekend to that Virginia Film Festival activity, so he and Aklilu collaborated with another student, Emily Dhue. The team eventually decided on a film that, in the words of Palmer, took an ordinary situation to the extreme. Their film, “The Cell Master,” shows what happens when a man who desperately wants a new video game watches the last game being sold to someone else.

Josh Palmer plans to live in Charlottesville and work on filmmaking.

They won the Mentor Award for their work in the competition, and Palmer had caught the filmmaking bug. He tried a stint in Hollywood, but wants to get more independent filmmaking experience under his belt. Taking Kevin Everson’s cinematography course helped immensely, he said. “It changed my perspective on what films can do and what I can make.”

Along with all he’s learned in his classes and from his professors, the friends and peers he has made on Grounds have made all the difference, Palmer said. “The lessons I learned from them (and ones I still am currently learning) are ever present.”

These students are among the total of 602 students graduating, some of whom will return to walk the Lawn in May.

Some facts and figures:

• Total number of graduating students: 602
269 undergraduate degrees
359 graduate degrees
(Note: Some students earned multiple degrees, so the latter number is higher.)

• College and Graduate School of Arts & Sciences:
92 graduate degrees
195 undergraduate degrees

• Curry School of Education and Human Development
99 graduate degrees
22 students getting bachelor’s degrees in Arts & Sciences, plus a master’s in teaching
25 undergraduate degrees, B.S. in education

• School of Engineering and Applied Science
97 graduate degrees
28 undergraduate degrees

• McIntire School of Commerce
Four graduate degrees
One undergraduate degree

• Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy
One master’s degree

• School of Architecture
15 graduate degrees
Four undergraduate degrees

• School of Medicine 
24 Ph.D., master’s in public health, master’s in science or M.D.

• School of Continuing and Professional Studies
15 undergraduate degrees (14 Bachelor of Interdisciplinary Studies. one bachelor's in public health)

• School of Nursing 
Four graduate degrees
One undergraduate degree

• One student earned both an MBA from the Darden School of Business and a J.D. from the School of Law.