Like most designers around my age, I did not start my life with a passion for graphic design. Through all of my early education, I was an "art kid," the kind of student who would have their pencil scribbling away in the corner of a notebook at all hours of the school day. I liked to be imaginative, and I liked to visualize my thoughts often. Fast forward to my senior year of high school, where I'm faced with finding out what I want to do with the rest of my life. College always felt like the correct option to me, but what would I go to college for? I debated pursuing a fine arts degree, but it sounded impractical for me, and I wasn't sure what I would even do with it. After some more thinking and research, I determined that the solution that seemed to best suit me would be the field of graphic design. I was intrigued by art director positions and work in the different medias that I love, and I found that the best way to reach a career like that would be by taking a design route. With all of that decided, I applied to The Modern College of Design in Kettering, Ohio, a short drive from my home, and I started classes in August of 2023. However, after just a few weeks of interacting with classmates and sitting in classes, I found out how little I really knew about the design field. I had initially imagined that I would just learn some Adobe programs, throw some text on some pages, do some photo editing, and call a work finished, but I was met with something far more interesting. Design takes everything that I love to do with visual art and gives me a way to apply it to something that is universally appealing, transforming the information I already know into information that I can convey to others. During my first real design project, I found out how amazing the design process is when done correctly, and it is a workflow that I have since applied to every project I now take on. I went from knowing hardly anything about the design field to using as much of its principles as often as I can, simply because I find it that fascinating and efficient. Just as I would visualize and sketch my thoughts as a younger student, I can visualize and sketch my thoughts as a designer, knowing that the workflow directly complements my thinking process. I am currently on track to begin my second year of design school, and I am more than excited to continue to learn as much as I can about design within the coming months. Graphic design went from something that seemed like a default solution for my education problem to something that I really want to do for the rest of my life, and I hope to keep learning and growing in my design skills for as long as possible.