Since I can remember, the arts have captivated the essence of my entire being. From drawing to music to fashion, and everything in between, I have utilized artistic expression as a way to communicate my inner thoughts and feelings to myself and others. In childhood, I was always eager to create and put it on display for all; but as I got older, and my feelings became more complex, I gradually began to keep my art to myself. I would make sketches and sew garments in the middle of the night; I would write songs and produce beats in the comfort of my headphones; I would paint intentionless figures and keep it all to myself. Then, I entered college where I was fully immersed in a creative environment, surrounded by creative peers who pushed me to share my passions again. As I became more comfortable with creating without perfection and sharing with my peers and professors, I became more confident in my work, and my passionate fire was relit. Although my eagerness to make without privacy emerged, there was always the looming cloud of the financial cost it would take to maintain my stay in the creative environment that is my school. Coming from a low-income, single-parent household, I was never afforded the same comfort as my classmates to just go to school and trust that my finances were being handled. On top of the demanding workload of my courses and their respective projects, I have had the added stress of sourcing funding that would not push me further into debt post-graduation. Every semester, I’ve had to scour resources for scholarships that I, a Black woman majoring in Strategic Design and Management, could apply to, all while incurring fee after fee for not meeting the financial stipulations by myself. Throughout this struggle, I have had the opportunity to utilize my right brain and left brain, particularly in my degree program as I bounce between my business-centric and design-centric courses. Many classes allow me to actively participate in both ways of thinking, as we root our work in the systems and theories of business and go on to ideate ways to enact change in creative ways through artistic thinking and practices. I find this to be most apparent in the pathway courses of the SDM major which roots itself heavily in research and development methods and practices. My left brain is activated in understanding the field and drawing conclusions from my findings; my right brain activates to formulate creative solutions to my findings in a way that is communicative and enticing. This interplay has realized itself in both my work and my endeavors, and I am grateful to have the ability to utilize all of my skills to express myself in the world around me.

As a third-year college student, I can easily say that I have grown tremendously over the years. From beginning my freshman year at home and completing school online to living and networking in my college city, there has been quite a transition in my overall being. Taking a snapshot of the past three years to focus on my progress from last year to this year, there is an equally significant growth in who I am. At this exact time last year, in January 2022, I created a vision board slideshow to set some goals for the next decade of my life. Because I was 19 at the time, I knew I wanted to enter my twenties with a sense of purpose. Although I am very young and just beginning my journey into adulthood, I needed something to motivate my future actions to lessen the feeling of moving aimlessly through life. I made sure to include goals and aspirations in nearly every aspect of my life: health and wellness, education, finances, experiences, friendships, etc. Although an expansive list, I made sure to include a clause stating that these goals were not set in stone and, therefore, there was no way to "fail" the new decade. Since then, I have become more intentional about the things that I engage in. More specifically, I have remained more mindful of how my personal, social, and financial engagements may affect the trajectory of my life and whether or not it aligns with my goals. I believe this progress was furthered by many of the people that I interacted with throughout 2022 such as my professors and community organizers. Being gifted with their mentorship and knowledge has allowed me to better filter through opportunities and interactions. Additionally, they have helped to position me closer to opportunities that I would not have been aware of myself. Over the year, I have learned the true importance of setting intentions and following them. Beforehand, I would take whatever opportunities came my way or softly approach things that felt out of reach. Now, I am more willing to go outside of my comfort zone to live the experiences that I wish to experience. Throughout this period of change, I am happy to state that my morals have remained the same. In my journey of intentionality, it is important that I do not go out of my character and absolve myself of being ethical because there is nothing less rewarding than taking from others to build yourself. Looking back, I know that the version of me a year ago, or multiple years ago, would be both surprised and admonished at how my motivations and decision-making process have transformed. Growing into a more intentional person, I am more confident in my actions and less anxious about the consequences.

Since I was a young child, I have always had a vast hunger for learning. I spent much of my childhood participating in a multitude of activities ranging from instruments to fine arts, science camps to theater camps, and various dance classes to various sports. Each activity I took part in became a part of my lifelong quest to experience the many forms of life and expression. I come from a household that was always adamant about putting us in positions to gain the most that life has to offer, namely knowledge, as it is the key to finding fulfillment in our experience on this planet. This upbringing fostered an intense sense of curiosity and inquisitiveness about everything around me. It came to the point that my curiosity about how the world around me operated and how these modern operations came to be often extended past the realm of my family's knowledge, resulting in me learning the power of research, in tandem with knowledge, at an early age. Although some of my most fruitful lessons were learned outside of the classroom, there is a different type of knowledge to be gained in the academic atmosphere. Being a student at The New School, there is an accessibility to particular realms of the world that I may not have explored on my own. I believe higher education serves the purpose of allowing us to deep-dive into worlds previously hidden from our regular search engines. The importance of higher education in my life falls not in the books or lesson plans but in the introduction to a new culture of inquisition. Through my own journey in higher education, I have been able to see beyond my basic understanding of fashion, ecology, and entrepreneurship into a subway of various career paths more specific to my career interests. Majoring in Strategic Design and Management, a fairly uncommon program of study, I have been able to explore each of the aforementioned career interests in ways I previously would not have considered. Gaining insight into design standards, strategies, systems, and psychologies has been a benefit to my approach to answering my questions and furthering my abilities. My education has allowed me the pleasure of being able to explore various avenues of creativity in a network of consultants, managers, designers, and more to discover how my ideas come together to a singular point of focus. As I learn to apply my insights to my community, the conceptualization of my plans to enhance the world I was born into is continuously evolving. My career aspirations are to normalize the necessity of prioritizing our ecology in the world of design and business. There has been a vast growth in the number of small Black-owned businesses, with a respectable percentage of those being in the creative domain. As my interest in fostering a brand consultancy agency increases, so does my need to uplift my community alongside me. My plan to make a positive impact on the community of growing Black business owners is to guide them in the direction of sustainability and sustenance. With my aid, I wish to provide them with the tools to supercede the competition of bigger businesses by being an enhancement not only to humans but to the health of the planet. Together, we can grow this journey of life and continue an exchange of wisdom through creation.

Living a healthy lifestyle is a luxury that many of us struggle to acquire, whether it be from personal predicaments or exterior forces from society. All over the media, we constantly see images of these healthy lifestyles such as eating nutritious foods, practicing mental health, and incorporating physical wellness into our daily lives. Coming from a low-income family, many of these healthy luxuries were not always within reach; others coming from similar financial backgrounds can likely relate to sacrificing our health in an attempt to remain financially afloat. As I have grown older, it has become a priority of mine to allocate space for the healthy choices that I want to indulge in because, as the saying goes, health is wealth. Being able to acquire a healthy lifestyle that allows me to eat well, sleep well, move well, and think well is freeing in the sense that I no longer have to navigate my life through financial obstacles.

In a world full of replicas, I have always been outstandingly different from those around me. I originally hail from Henrico County, Virginia which is a fairly mundane suburban area. Many of the kids from my neighborhood were vastly interested in being in the crowd and following the flow of the wind. I, however, tended to be more introverted and interested in learning about the world around me. From a very young age, I can recall collecting magazines put out by The Smithsonian and urging my mother to turn the television to the National Geographic Channel. Gaining knowledge about the history and science of our planet and society never provided a dull moment in my adolescence. I continued to yearn for a stronger and deeper connection to my understanding of the world and the meaning of everything that our lives encompass. As I got older, approximately in my pre-teen years, my interests in the visual arts were stronger than it had been before. I began to enroll in art shows and design camps to feed my need for expanding my artistic eye. I experimented in drawing, sculpting, jewelry-making, and garment design. Some methods impacted me more, namely, anything that dealt with fashion design. I fell in love with the process of having a vision of a particular dress or bag in my mind and bringing it from the metaphysical into the physical form. Although it can be tedious at times, the process of constructing a garment has an element of relaxation to it. During my early teenage year, I was convinced that I would strive to become a fashion designer. This declaration of my dream career course was met by numerous accounts of doubt and attempts to steer me into a more traditional field. I was constantly reminded by counselors, neighbors, and even older relatives of how far-fetched such a dream was, how Black girls would not be met with success in a career dominated by white men. Through consistent attempts to deter my goals, I chose to persevere. In high school, I began to further investigate my talents and aspirations within the fashion industry. As I continued on my journey, I learned that making apparel was fun, but there was still a need for a greater purpose. I began to look introspectively and ask myself what it was that I felt was lacking. Considering high school was also the time in which I began to search for my identity through hair, I was able to connect the dots. Many of the products, at the time, that were catered to natural hair were not comprised of the most sustainable ingredients. It became my understanding that a product made of components that I can't immediately identify is not a product suitable for consumption. I began to experiment with making my own soaps, shampoos, and conditioners that were more organic and equally effective as those sold commercially. Following testing upon my own hair and skin, I then began to distribute some of my products to friends and family in hopes that they would also receive positive results. After gaining appraisal from my trial customers, I decided it was time to move on to perfecting the business aspect of my newly found company which I would set on the principles of merging beauty with environmental sustainability. Constantly losing myself in the rabbit hole of entrepreneurship, I concluded it would be better approachable if I got a wider educational background. Therefore, I applied to college and am now enrolled in Parsons School of Design to study Strategic Design and Management. Already in my first semester, I have learned so many things that I will apply to my business to not only ensure that it runs efficiently but sustainably. I hope that my education continues to expand my knowledge on how to bridge the concepts of business and environmentalism in a way that is safe and prosperous.

Growing up, my interests have always fallen into two major categories: the arts and the environment. Most instinctually, the arts, whether visual or performing, seemed to not be introduced to me but ingrained in me. My knack for drawing, singing, designing, and more developed throughout my adolescence and has served to be the foundation of my aspirations today. Similarly during childhood, I quickly became aware of the crippling state of our planet’s health through documentaries and posters. As an inherent creator, combining my artistic and scientific knowledge was no question of “why” but rather “how.” While in high school, I pondered my career options as many students do, thinking about what I could do for a living that would not only bring me joy but also have a positive influence on others and Earth. Simultaneous to my deliberation of career choices, I was going through a personal transition in my consumer habits, particularly for my hair and skin. I was beginning to understand the true importance of knowing what ingredients are introduced into my body and their impact on the state of my hair, skin, and overall body. I began to make DIY (Do It Yourself) products in hopes of reversing the self-inflicted damage and strain upon my hair while also aiming to defeat the terror that is acne. With time and patience, I began to notice a positive reaction to the routine changes that I made. My hair began to flourish, and my skin started to glow. I continued this routine of making my own products and reaping the benefits of the practice. Additionally, I gifted some products to my family members just to see how well they worked. Randomly, I gave an extra product to a friend who struggled intensely with acne; in about a week, her skin also cleared up. Seeing this, it finally came to me. I would start a business featuring natural self-care and cosmetic products. I started to research similar businesses to find my own lane and discover what I could bring to the table to set my business apart from other existing businesses. After all, my goal is to be successful and not just a fad. Brainstorming is a constant process. Branding, marketing, production: they are all meticulously planned to individualize my cosmetics. I have developed a list of product lines to create, carefully noting the effects of certain ingredients and combinations. However, I still struggled with how to make a standout visual for my products. Circling back to my roots of environmental concern, I noticed the packaging of many of the comparable companies did not reflect the motives of the products. Through my personal research as well as my studies in class, I continue to learn the sustainability of certain materials, taking note of what I want my business to completely avoid to adhere to my environmental concerns. Setting a strong foundation for a business plan allows me to properly visualize and conceptualize the future of my industrial impact. For that reason, I am currently enrolled in my first year of college in pursuit of my BBA in Strategic Design and Management at Parsons School of Design at The New School. I believe not only does earning a degree enhance my knowledge on the procedures to be mindful of while orchestrating and launching my business, but it will also provide me a backup plan in case I have to operate through other businesses to further cultivate my business. I am trying to create a legacy for my posterity and the planet; a company that does not aim to feed into capitalist greed nor the exploitation of the environment but to nourish the beauty of the individual and the earth.