Three students have been declared “winners” in UC Davis’ first-ever video contest, but each of the 11 entries offer winning individual and group takes on “I got Aggied!”

After two weeks of voting, the polls closed on March 13 with more than 600 people registering to rate their favorite videos.

“The winning videos truly reflect Aggie Pride — they’re funny, spirited and clever … and they bleed blue and gold,” said Kristin Burns, marketing and communications manager for Undergraduate Admissions. “We look forward to sharing these videos with prospective students and showing them what sets UC Davis apart from other campuses.”

The videos will also be used by other campus units, such as UC Davis Extension, to promote UC Davis. They can be viewed at http://igotaggied.ucdavis.edu/watch-videos.

Eleven 30-second videos were in contention. There were two categories: People’s Choice, open to anyone making a video, allowed the public to rate the videos with one to five stars; in the second category, entries by UC Davis undergraduates were rated by a panel of judges selected by UC Davis Student Affairs.

The best public ratings went to managerial economics major Sing-Hin Lui for his video Strange Symptoms, making him The People’s Choice winner and recipient of an Apple iPod Touch. The fourth-year student is from Los Gatos, Calif.

Student Affairs’ first-place winners among the 10 videos created by undergraduates were Jason Lai and Michael Oki for their video igotaggied. They will receive a Kodak Zi6 HD Pocket Video Camera.

Jonathan Beck, a third-year biomedical engineering student from Modesto, placed second for UC Davis: A Very Good Place to Start. He is the recipient of a $100 certificate for a pizza party at Woodstock’s in Davis.

People’s Choice winner Lui reports that this is the first video he has submitted for a competition.

“I wanted to show a side of Davis that visitors can’t always see from a short campus tour,” he says. “The school colors, while common, pretty much represented my interest in the history, athletics, and reputation of UC Davis. The animals and Eggheads were unique aspects of our campus.”

The winning Student Affairs duo was made up of Lai, a third-year managerial economics major from Walnut Creek, and Oki, a fifth-year double major in communication and technocultural studies from Concord.

Lai reported the thinking behind his video: “I had to remember back to what it was like to be ‘Aggied.’ When I was thinking, the moment I felt I was Aggied was like it just ‘hit’ me, hence the book hitting scene.

“It was definitely fun making the video. Just goes to show how it takes many different kinds of people to make up the UC Davis campus, of how just anyone, even an ordinary guy like me, can be a part of the Davis campus.”

The panel of judges that evaluated the Student Affairs category included Burns; Nicki Sun, a third-year communication major and marketing intern in University Communications; and Thomas Watts, a Web designer in Undergraduate Admissions. They determined the winners based on originality, storytelling and overall impact.

The “I Got Aggied” contest was sponsored by UC Davis Centennial, UC Davis Student Affairs and UC Davis University Communications.