The day has finally come.  The caps are tossed, the tassels are turned and the diplomas are finally in hand. The world is full of possibilities.

Or is it?

Laurie Cepkauskas loves Cameo Beauty Academy, and she wants you to know it.

 “I traveled 45 minutes each way every day for class because that’s how much I loved that school,” professes Laurie, a 2007 graduate who has been featured on BehindtheChair.com. Laurie is currently Head Designer at Jeffrey Lamorte Salon and Spa, where she’s worked ever since she graduated. (How’s that for stability?) Read on to learn more about  why she chose Cameo (and why she thinks others should), how she landed a job at a premier salon right out of school, how she handled a particularly awkward client situation, and more.

Spend any amount of time reading Cameo Beauty Academy’s online testimonials and Facebook reviews, and you will see several of our instructors praised and thanked by name. Among them is the hairdresser/instructor/mentor extraordinaire known to nearly all Cameo students and graduates as “Ms. Pat,” who has been teaching at Cameo “forever,” according to administrators.

In a recent interview for this blog, Ben Mollin, season one finalist from Bravo’s  “Shear Genius,” called Ms. Pat “a spitfire of a woman . . . She was just a cool chick. She was like that art teacher who just sort of resonated with you, that you just enjoy. She didn’t necessarily make it feel like I was there as a student, she treated me as an individual.”

We caught up with Ms. Pat herself at the end of another full day of teaching, to hear her side of the story about Cameo and its students.