My mother raised me on her own. I'm an only child, so for most of my life it was just the two of us, and I watched her handle everything without help. Nobody handed me a plan for how to make it. What I had was her example, a woman who never quit no matter how hard things got. That's where my work ethic comes from, and it's why I've spent so much time trying to build something that can take some of the pressure off her one day. I'm a sophomore Visual Communications major at Northern Illinois University, and I'm also a graphic and UX designer who runs my own LLC. Before I got into design, I played basketball and boxed at the same time. I did both on purpose because I wanted to see how much I could handle it. It taught me how to stay consistent when I was tired, and to keep going when things got hard, instead of walking away from them. That's the same mindset I bring to my work now. A big part of who I am came from the Male Mogul Initiative, a Chicago program that mentors young men like me. I helped a group of us start a clothing brand, and that was the first time I saw an idea we talked about actually turn into something real with our names on it. I learned what it really takes to run a business, and how to invest, whether that's in stocks, in art, or in myself. The program wasn't only about making money, though. We used said money to keep up a community garden, cleaned up trash around the neighborhood, and put in real work for small local businesses that needed the extra help. That taught me that whatever I build should do something for the people around me too. What I want is simple. I don't want to spend my life building someone else's dream. I want to build my own. That's why I started my LLC. I want to get to a point where my creative work pays for my life, and I don't have to ask anybody else to cover it for me. For me, it has never been about living fancy. I want to take care of my mom after everything she did for me, and give back to the family that had my back when I had nothing to give them. But none of that happens if I can't stay in school. I'll be straight about my situation. I need over $6,000 to cover everything, and more than $3,000 of that is tuition I still owe. I can't get my campus housing until that tuition is paid, so this isn't some far-off problem. It's what decides whether I stay enrolled this year or fall behind. This money would go straight to my tuition. Not for equipment or anything extra, just the balance standing between me and my second year. It would cover what I owe, keep my housing secure, and let me keep pushing toward the independence I've been chasing since I was a kid watching my mom do it all by herself. From what I’ve read, Kalia Davis was known for giving her best in everything she did. That's how I try to move too. I've balanced two sports, a full course load, my own business, and a promise I made to my mother. I'm not looking for a handout. I just need the chance to keep going, the opportunity to make my dream come true.

I'm a Black American man from the South Side of Chicago, raised by my mother in a single-parent home. She worked hard to give me more than she had, and she taught me that nothing comes easy and that you have to build your own path. I'm studying Visual Communications at NIU, where I've learned that design is not just something I do; it's how I think. What pulls me in is brand identity, the strategy and visual language that help a business earn trust. I'm paying for most of my education myself through freelance design work and an internship, and along the way I started my own graphic design LLC. I've had to take time and money seriously earlier than most people my age. Getting here as a first-generation student meant learning a lot of things nobody could explain to me at home. How financial aid actually works. What a major can turn into. How to talk to professors and professionals. My mother gave me everything she had, but she couldn't hand me a map for a place she'd never been. I had to draw it myself, and that is exactly why I want to help other first-generation students draw theirs. I already know how to do this, because I've done it. For three years, I was part of the Male Mogul Initiative in Southside Chicago, a program that mentors young men of color through leadership, financial literacy, and personal growth. I was mentored, and then I turned around and mentored the students behind me, teaching them what I had just learned. I watched what happened when a younger student saw someone from his own block managing money, setting goals, and building a business. It made a future feel possible instead of theoretical. Representation is not a slogan to me. I lived on both sides of it. That's the model I plan to keep using. I want to show, not lecture. First-generation students don't need to be told college is important. They need to see someone who looks like them, comes from where they come from, and is actually doing it, so the path stops feeling like it belongs to other people. I plan to keep mentoring directly, the way I was mentored, and I want to use my design skills to build the thing I never had: clear, honest, well-made resources that break down aid, enrollment, and building a career from a creative skill. If a good brand can make a business feel trustworthy and reachable, the same design thinking can make higher education feel reachable to a kid who assumes it isn't for him. I'm not doing any of this just for myself. I'm working toward this degree to provide for my family and turn their sacrifices into something that gives back, and to be for the next student what my mentors were for me. I know where I come from, and I know what I'm working toward. A good education is the bridge between the two. My job is to make sure I'm not the last one from my block to cross it.

The biggest influence in my life is my mother. She raised me on the South Side of Chicago in a single-parent home, and she worked hard to give me more than she had. Watching her do that taught me early that nothing comes easy, and that if I want a path, I have to build it myself. That lesson sits underneath everything I do, including how I approach design. I chose Visual Communications at NIU because design is how I think, not just something I do. What pulls me in is brand identity: the strategy and visual language that help a business earn trust. I like the less glamorous side of that work as much as the creative side. I want to figure out what a company is actually trying to say, then build a system that says it clearly and consistently. My mother is why I work that way. She was intentional with everything she had, so I treat a brand the same way, with every choice doing a job and nothing wasted. When I graduate, I want to use my skills to put strong brand design within reach of businesses that usually can't get it. Most small businesses get a quick logo and nothing else. No system, no strategy, no consistency. I want to change that by productizing full identity work, turning brand strategy, visual language, and application into clear packages a real business can afford. That is where I see the innovation. Not in making one thing look good, but in building a repeatable way to give smaller clients the kind of branding that only large companies can normally afford. My goal is to grow that into my own studio. What makes my skill different is that I lead with strategy, not decoration. Many designers start with what looks nice. I start with what the business needs to say and who it needs to reach, and I let the visuals follow. The look is the last decision, not the first. I also see branding from two sides that rarely meet in one person. I model part-time, so I have stood in front of the camera as the thing a brand is built around, and I have stood behind the design that shapes how people read a brand. Living on both sides of that lens means I understand not just how something is made, but how it lands on a real person. That awareness sharpens every project I take on. I have already started doing this work. I run my own graphic design LLC and take on clients across branding and events, including some at my old high school, while balancing modeling and school. I treat my own growth like a business. I put energy into what moves me forward and let go of what does not. I know where I come from, and I know what I am working toward. My mother showed me how to build something out of almost nothing, and that is exactly what I intend to do with my career: turn a skill I own into a business that lets me provide for my family and give back to the people who supported me. That is the influence, and that is the plan behind every late night.