I have had to face many challenges throughout my life though I would say the biggest would be the relationship between my parents and I. One thing I've become accustomed to since a young age would be living with my grandparents and only staying with my mother every now and then. This wouldn't seem like such a big deal ideally though as I've grown more and more and my dad finally came back into the picture something happened between both sides. They each made their own families and left me behind. I see it even to this day where they have family vacations and my mom makes sure to go to all of my siblings' sports events or my dad spends time with my brother, on his side, and posts it all on his social media platforms. Also as a first generation student I'm navigating the college experience with even less support, especially since I can't emancipate from them but am required to put their information on my Fafsa. They help me out very minimally as in only giving me money for food every now and then and buying me a few clothes so I have to get as many scholarships as possible and use loans. I've realized now that I'm more on my own when it comes to life in comparison to my siblings but I know I can't blame anyone for how they are being raised or even my parents for their decisions. As I stated before, I live with my grandparents now and I take this time to help them out since my grandmother has gone through multiple traumatic medical issues and has a hard time doing most tasks. During my high school years I would primarily do as many school activities during the day in school as possible so when I was home I could help her out as much as possible. Both of my grandparents have become my biggest supporters and similar to parents for me, but they know how left out i feel and isolated so they've always tried to make both of my parents spend more time with me but eventually we all gave up. I'm an adult now and I have adapted to having them treat me more like a sister than a child. I even help them out with tasks like registering my siblings for school, taking them school shopping occasionally, and I do all of my college tasks by myself as well. I feel I have overcome this same problem over and over in different ways being emotionally, physically, and mentally where it's actually made me more independent, a problem solver, and stronger in general to be able to confidently keep going on my path in life to fulfill my passion of being an animator. One thing I would share with someone dealing with the same difficulties would be to never give up, you may think you're alone or not enough but you are better than that. If they don't want to be there for you there are always people that will, I found many people that have helped me push through from friends to advisors to professors, but just know you are strong enough to beat whatever life throws at you

In the program I am currently enrolled in, I am working towards a career in animation because I have always been a big art person and never really liked anything technical. Though with this program I am being taught both sides of animation including the coding and more technical part as well as the arts and fundamentals that are involved. Our school also brings in lots of people who have gone through our program and went to big name companies that come back and talk to the students and get to know them as well as teach new techniques. This helps with the factor of keeping up as the world of animation progresses and I plan on fully taking advantage of this when it comes to progressing towards this goal. Currently with how our curriculum is set up I am able to change my focus through the studios and electives i take such as animation, game design, and interactive design though currently i want to focus in animation. I am very open to changing this because I want to explore as many options as possible and really do something that makes me happy. I've started taking a liking to 3D modeling but I've barely scraped the top of possible job opportunities through this. Ideally I would definitely like to 3D model for a big name company such as Dreamworks or Pixar or even game companies too, since there is a lot of overlap between game design and animation. I have heard rigging in animation is not fun and not a ton of people like to do that though our program is known to produce great riggers and so I feel this would also be fun to explore and maybe find a way to make it interesting so I could get a high demand job as well. I already know that I'm not good at nor do I like coding at all but I feel I do have the basics down for it and I feel that with more experience I also may be able to enjoy this more when implementing it to my work. This program gives me so many opportunities as a student to find my right fit in this field of work along with giving me the tools I need to be flexible with that as well. I would love to be able to work in a big name company and possibly get my name in those movie credits and just be able to love my work. Animators aren't known for having the best income but I want to love what I do and help inspire others with my work.