Author Annie B. Milostan ’25 is a Baking and Pastry Arts major.
Our most recent Pathways to Excellence alumni lecture series was led by Victoria Androsz ’22 a Baking and Pastry Arts and Food Business Management major who is now the current owner of Vici Design in New York City. As a student here, she not only excelled in all of her classes, but she kept herself busy outside of the kitchens and classrooms. Victoria worked in marketing as part of the Earn & Learn scholarship program here, volunteered with Dr. JJ as one of his busy bees, was the General Manager for her Capstone event, and was very involved with many other campus events. Just two years after graduating from CIA, she now owns a studio designing beautiful wedding cakes and so much more in New York City.
I was able to have a few of my questions answered by her about her personal experiences.
How did you find an externship that you liked?
“It’s very important to start looking for your externship spot early, go to the career fair, go offer to stage at a few different places, or even follow the chef and places on social media and comment, like and dm them, show interest in what they are doing. Email them asking one question you have; these are all very important things to do to secure a spot with a place you really like.”
How do you grow your business?
“A lot of networking, something I am still learning is growing my planner network, whether that be event planners, event designers, menus, everything. I try and reach out to everyone to create as many connections as possible that I can, because I am new, I fully accept that and the only way to get your name out there and grow your platform and business is to make these connections.”
What do you look for when you hire people?
“I’m honestly not looking for experience. What I have found in building a team is the willingness to learn and how much you care for what you do.”
What volunteer activity did you like the most while you were here?
“That’s really hard because all of them opened different doors for me. They taught me how to problem solve, think on my feet, leadership, working with a team, they were all so rewarding so I truly cannot pick one.”
How did you excel in your classes while here?
“I took advantage of the resources here on campus and essentially, I was a teacher’s pet is the term but, it’s true, I was constantly asking questions on how I could improve and get better. I showed up early to classes and stayed late if I could, I just really wanted to learn and get better in every way that I could.”
