My parent's most impactful financial advice to me was simply to appreciate the things I have to work for. As an adolescent I was constantly comparing myself to those around me, frustrated and unable to understand why I couldn't "measure up" or afford the things my peers seemed to have handed to them. When I got my first job at Burger King as a sophomore in high school, I saved up and was finally able to buy the iPhone I had so desperately wanted for so long. It was my very first phone, and although I was incredibly happy and proud of myself, I was also bitter. "You have your phone now," my mom told me, "now you just have to pay for your own phone plan!" I felt so far behind and disconnected from my peers, most of whom had had their own smartphones for years. When I would complain to my mom, asking why they couldn't have ever "just bought it for me", she always told me the same thing. "You earned this phone," she emphasized. "They can't say that. Appreciate it. You are learning skills you will have for the rest of your life." My parents' lessons didn't truly sink in until I came to college. Every time I have to pass on plans with friends to work an extra shift, when I struggle with jealousy around peers who don't face the challenges of financial independence, what keeps me motivated is my sense of pride in myself. I brought myself here. I got myself to college, I earn my tuition, I provide the roof over my head. And I am incredibly strong for that. I can handle any challenge, financial, educational, or otherwise, because that is who I am and who my parents taught me to be.

I love art because I see it not as a discipline, but an extension of myself. It is the way I live and the way I view the world around me. Art history is a fascinating subject I’ve fallen in love with as a first year art student because it provides me an incredibly intimate window into the lives and psychology of people living hundreds or even thousands of years ago. I find there is incredible power and emotional impact in the ability of art to instantly bridge a psychological gap between people of different nationalities, cultural experiences, even vast time periods. Not only that, I’ve found that learning from the centuries of artistic wisdom we have accumulated is absolutely foundational and vital in my own practices. It is a never ending source of inspiration and fascination for me. My own art is an amalgam of my many and varied experiences, interests, and interpretations. Making art a daily practice feels like something that has literally changed the way I’m wired. I struggle with depression and anxiety and this heavily manifested in my own attempts at art making. I was constantly frustrated with everything I created, and I had a fear of the blank page. Since being in my first year of art school, the way I view and create art has drastically transformed. My classes have taught me the essentials of drawing in the sense of being able to depict 3D space realistically, etc., but more importantly, they taught me I am entirely unfettered by any one disciple as being an artist truly is a mindset and the skills I have are transferrable to literally any medium. I have gained so much confidence in my own ability and learned to trust the process 100% in anything I create. Even topics I initially believed would be nothing more than a requirement and a chore—which was how I viewed art history starting out—I have become totally enraptured by. I believe art, and learning in general, is above all about making connections. The world around me has taken on such depth as I find myself constantly making these connections—between art history and the modern world, my own life, between different disciples, generally with literally everything I see. It is an inherently intuitive process and difficult to describe, but that difficulty is another reason I love art so much. I struggle with words and expressing myself to other people as I’ve had terrible social anxiety from a young age. Art has become my primary and favorite form of expression, my way of speaking without having to speak. Art can be a visual representation of things I have trouble saying out loud or putting on paper. With all these newfound abilities and constant inspiration from the world around me, I’m no longer afraid of a blank page. Quite the opposite, in fact, I feel I have more ideas than I have time to carry out. One of the reasons I want this scholarship is because work and trying to make ends meet takes up so much of the time I want to just devote to my craft and doing what I love. There is nothing more satisfying than seeing my work come together and ultimately feeling that this thing I created with my own two hands is the fullest, most genuine expression of what’s going on in my head.