“We started off really small and then we’ve expanded to almost 40-plus members now,” said Daniel Philip De Castro Adriano, the vice president of the club.

Adriano, a Chemistry major, has served in his position for one and a half years.

“The reason why we’ve expanded so greatly is because the students are not obligated to anything,” Adriano explained.

The Chemistry Club doesn’t have a point system and they don’t have any mandatory duties required of their members.

“We’re not as formal as other clubs,” said Jong Shin, the club’s president. “We try to keep it chill.”

Shin, a Chemistry major, has been the club’s president for one semester. He assumes his club members appreciate the freedom that the student organization allows.

He doesn’t require his members to attend most of their club meetings because he understands that students already have many responsibilities to tend to.

“Being awarded for attending a meeting is kind of silly,” said Shin. “Some people have other obligations.”

He also understands that there are other ways to get information on upcoming club events instead of just meeting attendance.

“The Chemistry Club [sic] sounds like an academic club but it’s mostly a social type of club,” Adriano said. “We try to spread the fun and show the light of chemistry. It’s not always rigorous and difficult. There’s always some fun to it.”

The Chemistry Club clearly showcases the fun side of chemistry through their school outreach program in the local community.

They recently organized their first outreach activity at Saint Paul Christian School. Shin described this outreach experience as being meaningful and fun for a lot of people.

The Chemistry Club demonstrated a few experiments for the students of the school to experience. They wanted to garner interest in the students for the Chemistry program at UOG.  

The Chemistry Club also participates in the high school Chemistry Titration Competition by helping prepare things for the event.

The high school Chemistry Titration Competition has been held annually during Charter Day every year since 2009.  

“When I was in high school, I was actually part of the titration competition,” said Karen Mae Bacalia, a club member. “There were TAs judging so I always wanted to be one of them and now it’s a possibility because I am a TA.”

The Chemistry Club also collaborated with the Biological Sciences Club this semester to produce the haunted house.

“I was an actor and my costume was like trash bags,” said Megan Gimmen, a club member. “It was supposed to be body bags but nobody knew what we were because we were wearing trash bags.”

Although the club is chemistry-related, Adriano encourages other students to join.

“We’re not exclusive to anyone and to the people who want to join don’t have to be fond of chemistry in particular,” said Adriano.

The Chemistry Club meets every second and fourth Friday of every month. They meet in the Science Building in SC 236 from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m.

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“I was really scared at first to actually start it because I kept comparing myself to others,” Sapigao said.   

The idea came when Sapigao was hired by a church friend to photograph a birthday party.

She said the event helped her realize that people will pay affordable prices for high-quality photographs at small-scale events.

Sapigao’s focus right now is to promote her business in order to build a bigger client base for Reel Life Guam.

She hopes to gain this client base through advertising her business on her Facebook and Instagram pages.

“Right now, we actually have an ongoing sale of $50 a session,” Sapigao reveals as the promotion she is offering in the advertisements.

Sapigao’s journey in photography started when her father encouraged her and her siblings to develop an interest in it by teaching them how to use a camera to capture important family memories.

“I was like the family photographer,” Sapigao said. “Every time we were on vacation, I would be the one carrying the camera. I would never be in the photos but at least I took some pretty good photos.”

It wasn’t until high school when she really knew her way around a digital single-lens reflex camera, and that was the time people would ask her to take pictures of them because of the quality of her camera.

From there, Sapigao’s passion for photography began to flourish and she decided to take an introductory photography class at UOG.

The class provided her with the basics of the field and provided the basis for understanding the tricks and terminology.

“Once you know how to use a camera, you just keep practicing [sic] and use other resources online to improve your skill,” Sapigao reveals as the reason she didn’t pursue a higher photography class.

Sapigao enjoys capturing candid photographs of her subjects that convey a story that words can’t express.

“Each expression [sic] just tells this deep story that we can’t put into words,” Sapigao says.

Sapigao greatly appreciates any support she receives and hopes Reel Life Guam will keep telling stories through their photos.

The post UOG student starts small business appeared first on The Triton's Call.