Alumni Stories with Siso Dhladhla

Alumni Stories

You're listening to LCC alumni stories, a show dedicated to highlighting the amazing alumni of Lansing Community College. I'm Steve Robinson, President of LCC. And on each episode I have the awesome privilege of getting to know one of our many inspiring alum's and hearing about their experiences at, and since leaving LCC, LCC alumni community is expansive and far-reaching. They're incredibly diverse group of people representative of all walks of life, working in hundreds of industries across the country. Lcc alumni stories shines a bright light on alumni who make a positive contribution to their community. And showcases those who have overcome obstacles and barriers to achieve academic and personal success. These are their dynamic stories. My guest today is Siso Dhladhla and he is a fairly recent alum of LCC from 2014. Siso is a marketing and design specialist at downtown Lansing incorporated Siso it's so great to have you as one of the first guests on alumni stories. Yes, I'm excited to be here two, is actually my favorite number, so it's good. Good. Siso two is a good number and you know, we met talking outside on the LCC campus. Tell me a little bit about your time here and what you studied. So I was studying photographic imaging. I did not finish my certification or but I still greatly appreciated my time on campus. I move back from Chicago and about 2013, and I was working, doing creative projects on my own, but I really wanted to increase my knowledge and understanding of photography. I had positive recommendations from one of my favorite photographers at the time, shadow to Aaron Bell, also known as o' boogie, really, really great photography o' boogie, what kinda stuff does this photographer? He does a lot of portraiture lifestyle. And it just was really fascinating to me. But when I learned about his understanding of optics and how he could technically break down a camera to complement his natural ability to take a good photo. I really, I really wanted to be part of the program. His schooling actually got him a job in an eye clinic because he had an understanding of how the eye worked in that's directed to his understanding of optics based from the class. So that's fantastic. We can probably put a link to that work in the show notes for the podcast. So you picked up some, I'm guessing, great and valuable skills when you are here in photography and imaging, what kind of things that you learn that you've been able to apply outside of LCC? Well, really it wasn't until I took that class or those classes that I was able to begin shooting in manual mode. And just a disclaimer of photos. A photo, you can take a great photo on any mode, on any piece of technology. Doesn't matter. matter. That being said, there is a certain sense of accomplishment that comes from being able to. Break down the camera before the shoot, and then get the image that you see in your mind by dialing the knobs on your own. It's just there's this technical proficiency and and understanding and accomplishment that comes from that. So before I started taking those classes, I wasn't thinking about ISO, wasn't thinking about aperture, wasn't thinking about any of the many dials on the camera. I was just trusting it to make decisions for me. So it was very empowering. Well, I know exactly what you're talking about to me. It's like knowing how to drive a manual transmission and a car, right? Exactly. And you know it without going off on a long tangent, I had another podcast that's called teachable moment. And one of the episodes was one of our photography faculty at my previous college explaining how manual mode works, right? You really do need to know the ins and outs of how those images get made. So that's cool. So you learn that in our program and that happens a lot of students pick up transferable important skills and they move them out. And what did you do with that ability to really break down a camera and build an image with all those technical specs? Well, there's two things. One, just as a real life example of the transferable knowledge, the job that I had before. An interview question that they gave me was explain something to me. And what I explained to them was my photography process through the understanding that I gained from the classes. It was really high level what I broke down the separate parts and why I choose to shoot in manual. And that along with the rest of the interview really was helpful. The other thing that I really gained, or how I currently use the knowledge is really more so confidence, right? I am in an entrepreneurial space, right? I learned about entrepreneurship about six years ago and it really has changed how I think about things. And I work now to, instead of focus on problems, I work to focus on finding solutions. Now, being entrepreneurial with this photography, there was a certain point in time where I didn't feel confident enough to say go for the jobs that I wanted to or strike up conversations in order to complete projects that I wanted to because I knew internally, if we go until a certain limit, I will I can only swim until this far. Okay. So i understand taking these classes though I did gain technical knowledge. I also gained just an internal Confidence. What I really like to share about my experience with these classes though, is how, regardless of how beneficial and valuable they were. Because I didn't finish, I was the first one to put a certain stigma on myself as if I didn't do enough or adding come far enough or I didn't finish or complete. Ok. Now my introduction to the entrepreneurial world really brought forth the reality that what you really need is practical and applicable knowledge, right? If you have a degree, you have a certificate, if you have letters after your name, that's fantastic and advantageous, leverage that, but you don't need a certificate in order to be proficient in whatever area you want to be in, you need experience, you need time, you need practice. So at that point in my life, I could see that I was transitioning from. Thinking about the certification that I needed to have in order to please people externally, aha, versus feeling confident in moving in the direction that I want to, regardless of what letters are or are not after my name. Now when I went to school at Full Sail University for a long time, I carried around an insecurity of simply having an associate's degree. Right. And when you go to look for jobs, they ask for your credentials. And if you don't have a bachelor's, it seems as if they'll look on you negatively, which is ironic anyway, because even if you have a bachelor's but you don't have experience, you're still in the same boat, right? So when I talk about entrepreneurship, especially to younger individuals, which is an area that we resonated as we talked getting this information to younger people, I want them to know all the options they have available to them. You can have a degree, you can have a certificate, you can have applicable knowledge. It many ways to skin a cat. Well, and I love so many things about what you said. But one thing that I would love a lot of people to know is that there are a lot of community college experiences that students have and they pick up real-world experience and before getting a certificate or a degree, they move out into success. So we actually, we have programs where students, the employment market is so hot that when they get the predicate skills at the beginning of a program, they can go off and get a great job, right? So I think you make an excellent point because it gets to how we count success. Certainly some, some kind of spark or fire happened here at LCC with you and that has translated into success for you, is awesome. So your role with downtown Lansing Incorporated is pretty exciting because it sounds like you're leveraging some of those experiences and the knowledge that you picked up to really tell the, the region story to tell. the downtown story, what is that story and how are you telling it? Well, that is a question that I can't help but answer without a biased perspective. That's okay. Because we're in essence talking about where I grew or where grew me, everything that I am now. The things that people compliment me for, the expectations people have for me. I learned in the 517, I am a mass of experiences in the school system, different parts of the city, as well as being taught by someone who's from a different culture. I think what I hope everyone would think for themselves, but I'm an interesting mixture of elements and I cannot separate myself from where I am from. And I don't necessarily need to live here to love here. But because so many of the things that I love and I learned and I do are here. I like being here and I can't help but talking emphatically about here. Yeah, because here is where I picked up the things and I'm extremely emphatic about, so I'm biased. I understand, especially in these times, working at downtown Lansing, Inc. We're promoting and advancing businesses. Businesses tough right now, but you have to ask and how things are. I'm going to say again also thinking entrepreneurially will be fine. There are good things going on right now. Right? There is a lot of difficulty. There are empty buildings in holes in other areas of our city, right? But I look at those as opportunities to fill them with things that are amazing. What you took a word out of my mouth because when I was listening to you talk, I thought about opportunities, right? There's a challenge right now. But obviously this will you call it a bias. You almost might call it a grounding. Grounding from the 517 from greater Lansing brought you back from Chicago. A pretty cool place, right? But here you are. What, what, how do you explain that? What's special about Lansing that would bring you back from the Windy City See now this is what I was really getting excited to talk about because you and I can do a couple of things here. Family values or what brought me back to Lansing. Awesome. At that point in time, my family was experiencing some health issues and I was the most capable to come and assist. Okay. Now there's familial ties that are specific to different cultures. And I mean, you can't see it if you're listening only, but I've got my American and South African flag shirt on. It's a very cool shirt. I thought I had time to perfectly, I thought that today was national heritage day, but I found out actually that it was yesterday. But this was a day that was originally Shaka Zulu day, right? And my big brother's name is Chaka. So anything that's about celebrating Africa, I'm definitely therefore, and we talked a little bit about some of the things you've done in the past life regarding that section section of culture? Yeah. Really my family responsibilities brought me back and came back to care for family members in a really important part of your your identity and heritage? Absolutely. And even your last name is a Zulu last name, yes. Yes. So you come back to care for family and you're still here and really grounded in the area. Well, realistically speaking, like you were saying though, what would tie some what would bring someone from Chicago? I was there maybe a month ago. I love it. Never stopped loving. Uh-huh. It's a place that I like to be. Yeah. Right. I 100% of me didn't want to come back. Okay. That's I mean, that's just honest. Yeah. So part of also coming to LCC and working on this photographic Imaging degree, while I'm in a place where I might not a 100% and to be, let me try to do things to better myself. Let me try to find areas where I can have my delights while we deal with the situation at hand. So well, that's fantastic. And so when I want to think about because I'm coming back to Lansing longer gap than you are, right? I was gone for a long time. It strikes me that that Lansing has a visual element now that it didn't have when I was here before, right? You're a visual person. You know, when I think of the downtown art and the murals, there, there's some shout outs to places like Chicago. And in what we've got going on, you are leveraging social media to tell the 517 story. Talk to me about that. So speaking of art speaking of social media we're at the end of the year-long anniversary for below the stacks mural Festival, which by the way had to Chicago artists come from Chicago and place murals in the city. But man, I was given the opportunity, I still can't believe that I was given the opportunity, but I ran the social media for that account. And there is a mural on Washington and Washtenaw on and our our current executive director. Cathleen Edgerly would see me from time to time doing my social media thing in front of that wall, being as tapped in as she is in the community, she's genuinely consuming the content from her personal page, but also from downtown Lansing ink social media page, promoting it and sharing it because at that point in time there was no marketing or design specialist, which is ironically enough, the original role that she played at downtown Lansing ink when she worked there are really so she saw we interacted virtually first. And when the Mural festival ended, it just so happened that I was hosting a pitch competition and I asked if she would be part of the judging panel. So there were instances where we were interacting with each other. And long story short, I believe that really kind of formed or carve the path that led to what I'm doing right now, which is just again, like the mural festival. Leveraging social media to talk genuinely about things that get my juices going. Lansing is one of those places downtown is one of those places. I'm not just doing this for my job. I'm talking about my neighborhood. I'm not just sharing the business's story. I'm sharing the business page to my friend who I want business to work well, so It's just it's an avenue for me to be genuine and communicating about what I'm passionate about and where I'm passionate about. That's fantastic. And another great example about how what might seem like a classroom or kind of training experience at a community college could translate into something that's social. And here you are, you know, maybe doing visual storytelling with social media. When I was listening to a talk, it sounds like you're building your resume out in social, right? Right. Right. I just want, I just want to flip the script on you. I know that this is the first session in the first two episodes, but this isn't the first time we'd done this as we were talking, you got a little bit of history yourself behind the microphone with podcasting. And the reason that stuck out to me because my big brother got his degree in audio engineering. And also I've got I'm working through a podcast idea myself right now. So what is it that you do and in a previous life behind the microphone? Oh, well, thank you. Siso so as a student at Michigan State, I had a a radio program, WDBM. I had a bunch of teachers and friends at MSU from the African diaspora countries all over the continent. And I just fell in love with African pop music. So I started a program on Sunday mornings where we read news stories off the AP wire about the continent of Africa. Had guests on kind of highlighting the countries where they had come from. And mostly just plan great pop music. It's been a long time. But I've done podcasting professionally as a college leader, mostly to help tell people stories. That's one of the reasons I've loved our conversation. You know, so you you took classes at LCC that translated into success for you, that that is why we're here and those stories are worth telling. So I've done a podcast that I call teachable moment where folks take one idea and And use it to have great dialogue. There's this Alumni Stories podcast. I've got one about the public perception of community colleges. As you do your podcast, I would love to help. I've got a slide deck for that helps amateurs gets started with podcasts and that's all I am. I'm an amateur. This podcast is going to be a little glitzy here because we've got really talented digital media people at LCC. They're going to put a nice polish on it. But thank you for asking. It's, I think it's a great way to leverage social to, to tell stories and people love to put in their ear buds and then listen to people talk will one of the reasons I want to bring that up is because when I heard that originally in dear to you, to me more for a couple of reasons. Number one, anybody that's listening to good music, I know that we can get along and we can vibe and there's a certain way that we can get together, but I always have. And I think that this is my perception in reverse of being, you know, like they call it third culture individual grown in a place differ from your parents. Anybody that's able to dibble and dabble from different worlds without skipping a beat. It says something about the considerations they make about and the way that they walk through the world. So the fact that you can identify with the music in a genre and a language that's not yours. This is the way that my mind works, but that directly correlates to your ability to be in the position you're in now where you're basically trying to make a place for a lot of different kinds of people. And you have to be able to listen to these different kinds of music and eat these, different kinds of foods for the sake of being able to have community with these kinds of people. And, and that's further stamped by, you're using the podcast medium. Really what you're doing on your podcast is literally what you're doing for your job, which is trying to find the best way to instruct in push people forward. So I just thought that was really cool. We'll Siso thanks for that. And if you study the history of teaching, great teaching as dialogic, right? It's about dialog and it's about things like culture and language and the things that we produce because we're human. So I agree with you, and it was really cool to connect with you. Yea. That's it. Thank you. Siso it has been so great to talk to you and I know we're gonna be working with downtown Lansing much more. Thanks for telling your LCC story, and I can't wait to see you out in the community. Thank you so much for having me. It was a true pleasure. Yeah. This episode of LCC alumni stories was recorded and engineered by Steve Robinson in the Michigan room at LCC is downtown campus and produced virtually by Brock Elsesser from LCC is digital media, audio and cinema program. The soundtrack is licensed to the college through De Wolf music. Thanks for listening, tune into future episodes and learn more about what our alumni have been up to. If you're an LCC alum and want to share your story, send me an email at [e-mail] Until next time, keep learning. This has been LCC DMAC Lansing Community College, digital media, audio and cinema.