It is no secret that some college students balance school and work regularly, but California State University, East Bay’s Suroosh Rezaee gives a whole new meaning to the term “working student.”

His most recent endeavor is Smart Cookie, a service that uniquely designs cookies. While you may have seen large cakes with realistic images printed on the top, these are in cookie form. These fully customizable and completely edible images are created using a sanitary printing machine.

Rezaee, 24, was born and raised in San Jose, and at the age of 16, already had his foot in the door when it came to marketing. Doing events and promotions for local shows, he was mentored by a man named Mike Robinson, who ran artist development company UGMX.

From there, Rezaee began to take over and do publicity and marketing for many of Robinson’s artists. Later building BMikeRob Presents, a platform for independent artists to get their name out by performing on national television to advance their careers.

Rezaee has a team of graphic designers that he works with to create the realistic designs for the cookies. “It’s a sugar cookie with a fully edible image that’s customizable,” he said.

One may think that baked goods must have to sacrifice some flavor when such elaborate presentation is involved, but Rezaee assures, “they taste better than they look.”

The idea came to them from Rezaee’s business partners’ father, who unfortunately passed away from cancer. They developed the idea into what it is today, and have been able to cater many events.

“We’ve done everything from listening parties to video release parties down in LA to major corporate and sport events,” said Rezaee.

Smart Cookie got its name very simply; Rezaee and his partners thought the cookie was advanced for its time. “You know how you have a smartphone—well this is a smart cookie. It’s kind of catchy, so we ran with it.”

Smart Cookie also has the ability to integrate technology like QR codes into their designs. These codes can be scanned on a smartphone, and will automatically link you to the website that it is connected to.

Rezaee and Smart Cookie have recently closed deals with CSUEB’s Aramark and Sacramento City College, both of which now feature catering of customized cookies to staff events.

An on-campus staff appreciation event was held in April, and the school placed an order to have the cookies at the event.

Rezaee said Randy Saffold, executive director of Associated Students, Inc., was the one who “fell in love with the product.”

“[He] directed me to Wayne Narine [general manager of Pioneer Dining] who wanted to use it for the event,” said Rezaee. Their next goal is to get Smart Cookie into the Dining Commons on campus.

Interestingly, during rapper Snoop Dogg’s recent trip to the Bay Area, the product was featured on his Instagram account, which has 2.9 million followers, after a meeting with Smart Cookie.

Smart Cookie has even worked with the University of California, Berkeley to make Cal Football cookies for all home games and alumni events.

Being relatively young business owners, Rezaee and his partners sometimes encounter surprised clients when they finally meet face to face, rather than on the phone.

“Some [clients] will embrace our age, and others will knock us down because of how young we are,” said Rezaee.

But among all the work Smart Cookie has done, a few of Rezaee’s designs stand out in his mind. “My favorite designs are a lot of the stuff we’ve done for Cal,” said Rezaee, “they give us a lot of freedom of creativity.”

In fact, at Cal’s game against the University of Oregon this past season, Smart Cookie made batches of the Cal bear mascot holding up a duck that he had hunted. At the annual “Big Game” between Cal and Stanford, they printed images of a lumberjack cutting down the famous Stanford redwood tree.

After stints in Los Angeles, and getting more involved with marketing, Rezaee stressed the importance of higher education as he encountered more opportunities.

“I ran into the problem of not having that bachelor’s degree so that drove me to come back [to school] even though my resume was pretty big.”

In his second quarter at CSUEB, he is still pursuing more avenues of business. “I’m also in the process of getting my real estate license,” said Rezaee, “so I’m trying everything out. At the end of the day, I don’t know what’s going to be making me happy in the next 10 years, so I want to have the chance to be able to do anything I want.”