Deirdre Garvey

Professor

“SMC has a way of designing programs around dreams, not just pragmatic goals.”

When Deirdre Garvey was in college, life never stood still. While juggling a full-time and a separate part-time job, she took up to 24 units a semester and raced to her bachelor’s degree in only 2-1/2 years. “I was a hyperactive teenager,” says Deirdre. “That was the pace I worked at at the time.”

That pace has only slowed slightly, it seems. Today, Deirdre keeps busy as a full-time photo technician at SMC while also teaching photography, cinematography and photojournalism. And in between those early beginnings as a college student and now, she’s “dabbled in all kinds of things,” working at everything from selling brooms door-to-door to being sales manager for a perfume company.

Now settled at SMC for the past seven years, Deirdre greatly enjoys both her jobs. “There is no opportunity for boredom,” she says. “I teach in three disciplines and each student population is totally different. Journalism students are different from photo students. Photo students are different from cinematography students. In fact, day students are different from night students,” she observes, adding that her work as photo tech also gives her the advantage to get to know students other than her own.

There’s no stopping Deirdre’s drive even during her spare time. “When we have more than a one-day holiday, I’m on a plane,” she says. She’s been to England, New Zealand, Lithuania and Germany in the past two years. France and Ireland are next.

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