WVUP Student Entrepreneurs

By Abrielle Schmitt

Balancing life as a busy college student can be overwhelming and exhausting. Yet for some students here at West Virginia University at Parkersburg, they have managed to face this challenge by balancing their studies as well as their own business. These talented young adults are not afraid of a little hard work as the passion for their craft has already developed into a small business that they manage and operate themselves. 

Introducing our first student entrepreneur, Sarah Bowie. Sarah is in her second year here at WVUP and is majoring in Strategic Communications. When she is not studying or writing papers for her classes, she loves playing the piano, singing, staying involved at church, while also staying very busy as a photographer. 

After years of taking pictures and editing photos from her cell phone, she purchased her first professional camera in 2019 and started to explore the possibilities with her new equipment. Eager to see what she was now capable of, she explained, at the beginning, 

“I took pictures of EVERYTHING! Some of them turned out great and others were terrible, but I loved every second of learning the art of photography.”

-Sarah Bowie

Sarah Beth Photography was created from the growing passion within this talented young woman. She finds inspiration from God, her family, and friends. Bowie enjoys doing all kinds of photography, but she does hope to pursue couple/wedding photography fulltime in the future. Bowie says, “There’s something extremely special about capturing the love between a young couple. Everything’s exciting and life is a blank canvas. Nothing seems too hard to take on as long as you’re together and when you take pictures of a couple who feel this way, they’re magical. You can feel the emotion, love, and happiness just from looking at the picture! It’s such a unique time of life and when a photographer truly captures a couple, the photos can tell their story. It’s so beautiful!”

At the start of the new year, Sarah Beth Photography officially became a licensed business in the state of West Virginia. With this amazing news, Sarah keeps looking ahead to accomplish her educational goals and eventually pursue a career in marketing after graduation. For now, Sarah continues to balance her hectic schedule, school deadlines, and her passion to let her business thrive. She admits to pulling a few all-nighters and early morning wake up calls to finish homework or last-minute edits on photos for a client. She tries to stay on top of everything by constantly re-prioritizing her to-do list and compromising when deadlines are near.

If you want to get ahold of Sarah or look at her work, check out her website.

https://sarahbethphotography927.mypixieset.com/

If you have a small business or know a student that does and would like to be highlighted in an upcoming story of The WVUP Chronicle, please email aschmitt@wvup.edu.