For the record, the idea that you are supposed to know your raison d’être at the ripe old age of 17 while applying for colleges is kinda ridiculous. And if we’re going on the record, it should be said that I really didn’t have any intention of studying art past high school. It came as a surprise to everyone - my family that had known me as an academically gifted child sure to follow her brother’s footsteps to something like computer science at Berkeley, my friends who helped me pick five random photos from my portfolio that got me into my high school’s VAPA program, and myself, who had gone into freshman year imagining an East Coast enrollment in probably economics. I didn’t even want to do theater in the first place - I got dragged into it by a friend of mine, and due to short staffing in the sound department, defaulted into a Head position I really didn’t expect. And I can’t say the journey’s been all roses either, but that’s exactly how I can say with confidence that there’s nothing else I could be doing. The moments of tears during intermission, before shows, after shows, of frustration, anger, disappointment - they made the tears of joy, of satisfaction, and of pure love for what theater does and the people I got to know within it all the sweeter. I once heard my Stagecraft professor, speaking with a colleague, say that “If someone can do anything but theater, they should do it.” Whether one looks at it as an unfortunate or fortunate circumstance, I find that I cannot imagine the same level of enrichment, satisfaction, or community anywhere outside of the arts. Between my participation in my school’s VAPA program, the after school theater program, and the CLARA Catalyst program, I continue on from these experiences with the knowledge that as long as I keep up with art, whether that be visual or theater or music, I will love my job, and my life. It feels cheap to try and express the ways in which the arts have turned my life around in the past four years with just words, as I look forward to a career that fulfills the notions of loving what I do and traveling that I’ve held for my future since I was young, as I hope to one day tour with a concert or a theater production, or settle in one place and touch a thousand different shows, or maybe one day find some college campus and teach the art that has brought me a community of friends, mentors, and passionate, inspired people who love nothing more than to create. If I can continue to live and breathe art the way I have done, especially in this last year of high school (say no to STEM classes!), there will not be any better future I could create for myself. And it starts right now, as I have the extreme privilege and excitement to be studying at one of the top programs for my field of theater design and production, at UCLA’s School of Theater, Film, and Television. I can look to incredible alumni, like the set designer for the Broadway hit “Hadestown”, as examples for myself and possibilities for my future in theater production.