During the Covid-19 Pandemic, then eighth grader Sabrina Castelli found her passion.
“I was locked in my house all day with nothing to do, and I was on the Internet constantly, and I saw these videos of all these people doing things on their hair, coloring, cutting, and I found it so interesting,” Castelli said.
Castelli’s passion for hair helped her become an innovative person.
“I realized how creative you could get with something with colors and techniques and just styles and all of that. And I was never, like, a sports kid or someone that was really into art or music, so finding something where I could be creative in my own way, just was so interesting to me,” Castelli said.
When Castelli got to high school, she entered the cosmetology program at the neighboring school, the East Cooper Center for Advanced Studies.
Castelli struggled early on in her high school journey at Wando, but being in the cosmetology program, she was able to find her place at Wando through her cosmetology work.
“I feel like I was always a shy kid, so coming into Wando definitely opened my eyes a lot. It got me out there. I met so many great people, and then coming into the program, it, like, opened up my social skills,” Castelli said.
Now in her senior year, Castelli develops her experience through her job at Shag, a salon in Mount Pleasant.
“I [also] do a bunch of training, and we do hands-on classes there and basically it’s gonna make my experience and my learning and just my skills so much, like, bigger and better,” Castelli said.
Castelli’s favorite part of cosmetology is hair. Most specifically, she specializes in highlights.
“I am very into highlights, which is blonding and all that stuff. So I’m very excited to learn more blonding techniques and layered hair cutting and fun colors and everything,” Castelli said.
Hair and highlighting are very special to Castelli because of her ability to use both hands with equal skill.
“Because I’m ambidextrous… I can do things with both of my hands, and I just found that, like, so amazing that I could just do one thing almost out of the head and the same exact thing on the other side of the head without having any trouble,” Castelli said.
Castelli’s cosmetology teacher, Addy Ketchen, in her first year at the ECCAS, found Castelli a pleasure to instruct. Ketchen praises Castelli’s outgoing personality, which allows her to develop deeper connections with her clients and effectively do her job.
“She’s a real go-getter. I can tell that she wants to be in this industry because of how she interacts with her clients… she’s very personable and she does very good consultations with her clients, so she knows exactly what they want and what she can provide for them,” Ketchen said.
Ketchen said what goes into preparing stylists to connect well with clients, socially.
“In cosmetology, they do have several chapters dedicated to communicating for success, so we teach them a lot about consultation, talking about close ending questions, open ended questions, and then we do a whole lot of role play also,” Ketchen said.
The cosmetology program aims to build the skills that students require to work in the cosmetology industry.
“We have a couple of students that have already tested for their examination, and they’re just waiting to take the practical part, which is the hands-on part. They very well could be licensed before they graduate high school. And then they can go into the workforce,” Ketchen said.
After a successful first year at the ECCAS, Ketchen takes pride in her students’ accomplishments.
“Just to see the growth that they have made from the short time that I’ve been here, it is truly amazing. I think all of these young ladies, all 15 of them [that] we have in the program, are ready to be in the workforce. We call them future stylists, and I think they’re ready to take that future offer their names, and now they’re ready to be stylists in the industry. And I think they’re going to make a great, great impact on our industry,” Ketchen said.
