Hello, My name is Matthew Milie, I am currently a senior at Gateway Senior High School. I began drawing when I was in grade school. During this time I also started making comic books with my friends and sold them to people for about a dollar for them to keep, as well as giving them out to my family members. In Middle School I taught myself how to animate on an iPad. During my High School years I have been apart of the Photography Club and the Art Club to further improve my drive for creativity. I joined Forbes Road Career and Technical Institute, despite the fact that I have mostly been taught web design among anything else, it still has pushed my drive for more creative ventures, like 3d modeling, editing photographs, etc. I am an A student in the Multimedia design field and the learning I've received during this time has been invaluable to me. The internet has opened my eyes to all kinds of different areas of graphic design and animation. All of these reasons and more is why I am applying for this scholarship to help me pursue my dream of becoming a graphic designer, animator, and comic writer. However, I would not have gotten the inspiration to go further with this goal had it not been for the various creators and artists that I have watched and learned from over the years, the main one being animator and co founder of Jacknjellify, Michael Huang. He was born in Moraga, California along side his twin brother Cary Huang on March 18th of 1997. He attended the University of California Berkeley for his film major. He and his brother created their own website in 2005 called htwins.net, where they host their own projects. What makes him such an inspiration to me as a creator is his humor that he puts into his videos, how nostalgic his videos are to me personally, and the art style that is used in the web series that he co produces. He helped to create Battle for Dream Island (abbreviated as BFDI), a cartoon about anthropomorphic objects that compete for a grand prize, inspired off of Total Drama Island, which started in the year of 2010. This even show won the Cartoon Crave Award in 2023. This show has inspired me to start creating projects of my own and I have been uploading them to YouTube for a good 8-9 years. I have personally talked to Michael myself online years ago, which now has furthered my passion for creation and storytelling. The way he shows off his characters and his shows are different. The designs, colors, and shapes aren't used up or repeated. Most designers keep the same boring and general designs of most of their shows and characters. But for BFDI, each character pop outs in their own unique way. Michael has influenced the person I am today by his entertaining cartoons, the world that he has created, and the stories of adventure that he pits his characters in, something that I wish to do myself with my own sets of characters that I have created. One goal that I have in the future is to go to the Community College of Allegheny County (CCAC) to complete my general education courses then to transfer to PennWest University (Edinboro) to finish my degree in graphic design, the end goal however is to develop my art and designing skills further and to potentially get an internship into the Walt Disney Company, as well as creating my own projects on the side. Some ways in which I hope to make a similar impact like Michael Huang is by inspiring others to create their own projects, to tell their own stories. Disney World and or Google are my two top choices. Between my junior and senior year of college I will be applying for an internship at Disney World in their animation department. I hope one day that my animations will be apart of the greater Disney legacy, akin to other giants and legends in the industry. Michael Huang is my inspiration in animation as well as wanting to go to Disney World. I am excited to truly start my adventure and to potentially, in the future, branch out more than just Disney and Google. Maybe to work on more independent projects with the people I will meet or to work on something else that will truly be groundbreaking. I hope to be an inspiration to a younger generation as Michael has been to me and maybe to even work for Jacknjellify themselves! Thank you for your consideration of the scholarship.