Growing up between urban and suburban communities, I have grown passionate
about the conditions of underserved neighborhoods of black and brown people in the
city of Chicago. Separated only by 15 minutes, my home and school life in the suburb of
Westchester was greatly contrasted by my family and church life on the west side of
Chicago. As you cross a street like Austin Blvd, this difference is made clear as day, and
my weeks were split, going back and forth across this line of demarcation, experiencing
two ways of life. The car-dependent, quiet, and disconnected nature of the suburbs
presents a unique set of problems, while the chaos of the city, with its density and rich
history, have its own and I am interested in exploring unique spatial solutions to these
problems, while simultaneously attacking social issues, like those related to the lack of
accessible third places because of increased commercialization.
The opportunities for architecture to be an outlet for change in a city like Chicago
are endless, and with the design skills that I have, and will continue to nurture, I want to
be a catalyst for those improvements as they will have direct effects on families like my
own. I have a background in robotics, spending most of my high school career on my
school's robotics team where I lead in exercises of finding solutions to a set of
problems, and upon entering the undergraduate Architecture Program at U of I, my goal
was to be able to do the same with building design. Through my studio projects, I took
all the opportunities I could to serve users like women of color, and underrepresented
youth, something I have seen both my parents do all of my life, owning third places of
their own on Chicago’s west side. I have seen my parents use buildings and space as a
way to serve North Lawndale and be leaders in the community. My fathers mixed use
building has served as a barber shop, apartment building, church, food bank, clothing
donation center and more, and through design, I want to create more opportunities for
minority and women owned spaces such as these.
I have gotten so much experience in my undergrad with leadership being on the
Executive Board for the National Organization of Minority Architecture Students and acting as a student leader in many capacities for the school
and I feel prepared to continue to be a leader on a more advanced level. I want to enter
a graduate program to put myself in a position to influence change. Black women makeup less
than 1 percent of the licensed architects in America and I would like to be a part of that
change, not only in becoming licensed myself but being an example to others, showing
young black women what they can achieve. This scholarship would help me to pursue a Masters in Architecture, one more step toward becoming
licensed and a step forward in my education, allowing me to expand my knowledge in
the field, and better understand how to aid the communities I am so passionate about through Architecture and Urban Design. With this scholarship, my time can be spent focused on my schooling versus working and reduce the loans I would need to take out for this pursuit of higher education.