The College of Business and Economics would like to give a warm welcome to CBE Associate Student Inc. representative for the 2025-2026 academic year Sophia Gamino. A junior with a Business Administration: Marketing concentration, Sophia also holds a position on the ASI Board of Director’s, Legislative Affairs and Community Engagement and Outreach Committee.
Sophia steps into this role with the focus on increasing student involvement. During her campaign, Sophia voiced her interest in wanting to get more students career and academic ready. Witnessing firsthand limited student preparedness and the roadblocks to come. Sophia mission is to create and foster opportunities that tackle student success head on. To kick start this initiative, Sophia will be partnering with CBE Career Placement Coordinator Zeidy Cabera to launch workshops and events aimed to increase student engagement. To push the importance of higher education even further, Sophia is interested in partnering with CBE Graduate Programs for students to become familiar with the program and spark interest in the pursuit of an advanced degree.
Stressing academic importance, Sophia always wants to establish fun and engaging events for her fellow classmates. All work and no play is not the college experience students signed up for. Sophia wants to bridge the gap and fight the narrative of Cal State LA being labeled “a commuter campus”. She wants to create social events for students to interact, get to know each other, and build community.
A natural leader, Sophia attended the Schurr High School in Montebello, CA, where she took part in the 4-year pathways program. The pathway program teaches students the knowledge and insight as to running a business. Each semester, students gained hands-on experience in entrepreneurship through courses such as Intro to Business, where they learned how to design and sell a T-shirt, and develop and run a coffee Shop. They explored essential skills like balancing a checkbook, managing inventory, and analyzing which flavors or seasonal products were most profitable. The experience provided hands on learning of business insight and laid the foundation for Sophia to pursue a degree in Marketing.
On a retreat to Big Bear with newly and currently elected ASI representatives, Sophia shared with her colleagues her biggest obstacle in this role. Shyness. Sophia colleagues informed her that she is far from shy. Surprised to find this information, Sophia used the encouraging words her colleagues had shared with her upon her to take on this new role head on and make the change she wanted to see within the College of Business and Economics.
When Sophia is not leading the change, you can find her diving into a book or writing a novel. She has written two novels, run her online business Sophi’s Bake, and always makes time to prepare for the spooky season—her favorite, as she’s a big Halloween enthusiast.