By Valeria Iuleva
The Fall semester of 2025 was full of memorable events – and the Pop-Up Shop and Showcase event, which took place on October 30 at MCC’s food court, was one of the most impactful and practical this semester. Ran by the Entrepreneurship Club, this event united student-vendors with the new audience: campus mates and the Tri-C’s staff. Business approach and professionalism of the students were converted into their brand’s visibility and real revenues.
Prof. Tasha Wilburn, who renewed the Entrepreneurship Club on Metro Campus just last year [the Club was registered at the Spring 2025 semester], made it visible very soon. The club, being a relatively small group of students-participants, successfully hosted its first Pop-Up and Showcase event in just one month after the Club was started (it took place on April 24). The same semester, they hosted a Pitch Competition event (students’ version, hosted separately from Corporate College’s one), which added visibility to the students’ business ideas and gave them stipends to develop their businesses. After such a voluminous start, people on campus had some expectations about further semesters’ club activity.
The Pop-Up Shop and Showcase of the Fall 2025 semester was effective and impressive. Compared to the previous years’ experience, there were almost two times more vendors, and almost half of them came from other campuses – Eastern and Western. The vendors shared after the event that the quantity of visitors surprised them, and the high-level support of Metro’s students and staff left them with very small amounts of merchandise. Besides buying various stuff from vendors (the variety was great: from homemade bakery to candles, from dog’s treats to customized clothes, from jewelry to decorative posters), event’s guests could also practice their small pitches, gaining some treats for it. The next semester, the Entrepreneurship Club plans to run a Pitch Competition again – so the game “Sell me (something)” could become a proxy version of it, and a source of inspiration for the real ideas. Many guests, among students and staff, took their chance to pitch a strange piece, mentioned on the randomly taken cards, in a very creative and fun manner.
The Entrepreneurship Club was present as a vendor too – selling their Club’s T-shirts and presenting the club. The less visible, but also valuable part of the event was in a networking component: vendors were chatting to each other and to buyers, to college staff and other campuses’ students. As the event was held during the lunch hours, everyone coming to dine in the food court zone became a guest – and could make a spontaneous shopping or have lunch with new people. Finally, the Pop-Up Shop’s guests enjoyed the Lunch Break Line Dance Lesson, which take place every Thursday at MCC’s Food Court as well.
Events like the Pop-Up Shop and Showcase help students to connect their business classes to real life, or vice versa – to connect their experience with the theory. College’s format is basically a safe space for people to test their ideas, have business professionals’ feedback and to make money with no need to invest in additional advertisement. If you know someone who creates any goods or services and will be an enrolled student next semester, share this article with them, because the Entrepreneurship Club will announce new Pop-Up Shops’ dates for the Spring semester soon!
To contact the Club about becoming a vendor, or to have more data about the Pitch Competition, write an e-mail to Prof. Tasha Wilburn: Tasha.Wilburn@tri-c.edu.
