The biggest life lesson I learned was in high school. It was to have the strength to move on. To move on from non-beneficial relationships and toxic people who did not benefit me anything. I had a close trio of best friends freshman year and always thought we would be friends forever, even throughout college. I soon found out that they were talking about me behind my back and one day they unceremoniously dumped me as a friend. It was now the two of them against the world. I was crushed. I couldn't understand why I had been edged out of what I thought was my best friend group. I soon realized I had dodged a major bullet when the two of them kept getting in trouble at school and more and more people began to dislike them. It taught me that although it was so hard to let go, sometimes we need to move on. When my grandfather passed in 2017, I tried to apply the same belief of moving on to his passing. I did not want to toil in the what could have been, instead I wanted to remember him how he was and the good times we had together. Due to my past lesson a few years back, I was able to move on and remember him in the best way. Now as a graduating senior, looking towards graduate school, I am once again reminded of moving on. The last thing I want to do in two months is leave my best friends and my Syracuse family that I have made here. But a large part of me knows that I am going to have to move on. To move on in this way is to remember all the good times I had, but also remember that I have one life to live and I cannot get stuck in the past. Moving on is something I take very seriously. Whether that be from a relationship, a job or a place, moving on is something humans have to do in order to grow. Growth is the only way we can truly reach our full potential. I want nothing more than to reach the highest levels that my life has to offer. I believe me learning how to move on is one of the primary ways I will be able to grow after undergrad and beyond. I will finally learn to be the best version of myself, all because two girls in high school decided I wasn't enough.

Coronavirus. The virus that created a pandemic which changed the fabric of my being for the rest of my life. I had always experienced symptoms of anxiety and obsessive compulsive disorder, but I didn't know what they were until I began to go to therapy. Due to the pandemic, I began seeking therapy and going on medication. It changed my life. I realized I was not the only person who was struggling with these things and it also motivated me to get better and be the best version of myself. I slowly began to feel like my normal self again as the world began to get back to normal. Now whenever I have a panic attack, I am able to talk myself down from it and experience real life. I also have a better understanding of the world around me and how the human brain works. This has given me a lot of insight when it came to working with other people and building my own business. Now I want to create a safe space for people like me to come and record music in a beautiful studio. I want to be able to foster peacefulness, creativity and happiness. I have now realized that my goal is not only to better myself but to better the world around me as well.

Four years at Syracuse University changed my life. It gave me a supporting community, a sense of purpose and for one thing, perspective. Yet, it also left me in a lot of debt. I started my career at Syracuse as a prospective theatre major, but was not accepted for that. Instead I was admitted to a program called Communication & Rhetorical Studies. The program also required me to declare a minor on tope of my existing studies. This drove me to look heavily into what I wanted to spend the rest of my life doing. I settled on the music industry, a collaborative and creative place where someone like me could forge my own path. I have been taking classes in that field ever since. Now with my four years almost behind me, I began to think... what lies ahead? I tried my luck with applying to one graduate school only: NYU's Masters of Music Business program. To my surprise, I actually got in! It was one of the most exciting moments of my life, to realize I could continue my education in the most progressive city in the world. I could be doing what I love and making the music industry better for it. To understand what I will be doing, let me explain my path within the music industry. I am very much a people person. I love consorting with people and making contacts. I also love being around the recording process of artists, and although I am not an engineer, I feel the need to be around that process. With all this in mind, I decided to set my sights on becoming a renowned recording studio manager. I wanted to create a safe space for musicians to record their music, which can sometimes be the most vulnerable parts of themselves. At NYU, I am looking to build a huge list of contacts to help me start buying and renovating my own studios. Then I can use my educational knowledge to make my studios become some of the best in the world. I want artists to come from across the globe to record at my studios. I want to apply both my undergraduate degree in communication and my masters degree in music business to create the pinnacle of recording studio companies. This grant would help me so much in financing this education and creating my company. It will also lessen they amount of debt I will have to pay off in future years, leaving more capital more my business ventures!

Two words: Remi Wolf. Remi Wolf is now a renowned musical artist with a plethora of talent. But before she reached these heights, she was a severe alcoholic with an anxiety problem. Her story from rags to riches is essentially what inspires me the most. Remi found strength in music. By writing, recording, mixing and producing her own music, she put herself on a path to sobriety and stardom. She overcame her anxiety through her music, using it to express her emotions and pour her heart out to her friends and family. She began a slow rise to the top, but is now regarded as a star. Her fans are personified by their crazy personalities and outspoken fashion senses. She encourages everyone to be their most authentic selves no matter the cost. Being yourself is the biggest way to overcome your personal hardships. For me, her story speaks on a personal level. As someone who struggled with both addiction and anxiety, I found strength in music as well. It became a lifeline for me during a time when I felt that I had none. Music (especially Remi's music) motivated me to be myself and to put my faith in my studies. I began to dive headfirst into my future and see what I really wanted to achieve in the music industry. My hopes to become a recording studio manager and to help people just like Wolf are my primary reasons for pursuing music. I settled on the studio manager positions because I felt that would enable me to better support different artists. I would love to be able to help female and non-binary artists feel safe in their own skin while they record some of their most vulnerable music in one of my studios. I want to motivate people to feel their best even when they're recording music about feeling their worst. As the manager of my own studio, I would have full control over the recording process and the hiring of the people who make recordings what they are, extraordinary. I want to encourage creativity and spontaneity all while creating a safe space for artists to record in. I also want to take other women under my wing, since the music industry is such a male-dominated field. I want to show other women that they can burst into the male scene and create their own space. No woman should ever have to fear being in a situation because of its history. Women should understand that they have the power to change anything they want in whatever industry they want.

Bigotry. Hatred. Racism. These are things I grew up around in my small suburban town of Garden City, Long Island. I did my best to learn the opposite by educating myself through forums on twitter, reddit and google. It wasn't the most comprehensive education but I knew that this would be something I would always be learning. As a cis-white woman, a lot of people expect me to carry on hateful thoughts and non-intersectional feminism. But I try to do everything in my power to prove I am the opposite. During the summer of 2020, when Black Lives Matter was at its peak, I began to look around at my social media platforms. I began to advocate for my minority friends and try to educate those around me who didn't care. One day I became so enraged when I saw people just carrying on normal life and even going on vacations not only during a pandemic but during the scariest time for black people that occurred in the modern era. I decided that I wanted to disrupt the narrative occurring on my feeds and make people sit back and think for a minute that what they did was wrong. I posted a five minute long rant of sorts. I went on about how ridiculous it was that there was people out there that could not seem to wrap their heads around what was going on to the people in this country. I began to call out the silence around me and how uncomfortable it must be for BIPOC around them to witness that when they believed these people were supposed to be allies. I sent out a call for the people I knew to be better, to sign petitions and to donate to organizations for the cause. I also included a section at the end saying that although silence is complicity, there is never a wrong time to stop being silent. Even if someone had not spoken up in the past, they could decide to be different now and begin educating themselves all while making a difference for another community. I posted this blurb to snapchat and to instagram in order to reach my intended audience. I even went through my social media and unfollowed those who were silent during this time. I began to follow a ton of advocacy accounts as well. I don't have access to the video anymore but I remember nearly every word I said because it was one of the most proud moments of my life. People reached out to me and thanked me for posting and I said please don't do that because what I was doing was simply the bare minimum. I still need to be better and try to work harder for my BIPOC friends, but knowing that I changed some minds that day was enough to nearly bring me to tears. I will always fight for what is right. In my personal life, in my career and in any way possible. Our society is not a healthy one until it beneficial for all those who take part in it.