Taylor Swift has always been an important public figure in my youth. In the Fall of 2022, I took a business of the visual arts class. This led me to delve into 21st-century artists from a more academic lens. I recalled that Swift's tenth album was imminent and decided to do more research on her artistry. I embarked on a semester-long research project on Swift's career until December 2022. I was able to listen to older music that made me nostalgic for my childhood. As well, I was able to process a lot of my feelings as a 20-something in New York City. During the Spring semester, I studied abroad in Itay and continued my love for Swift from there. This was my first-time disconnection from my family. It was a difficult journey but I was able to grow up a whole lot more. I completed my semester abroad in mid-May. May 26th, 2023 was a momentous time for me. My cousin and I got to attend the Eras Tour at Metlife Stadium on Night 1. My cousin was more of a casual fan unlike me who was a Swifite. We both dressed in different eras. My cousin was dressed in a white dress reminiscent of the album Fearless. I wore a purple pleated dress with a purple fur jacket representing Midnights. Our seats were in the lower bowl meaning we were right above the floor seats. The set started with Gayle and Phoebe Bridgers. We enjoyed our time during the sets. Chills started to arise when a clock appeared on the screen with Lesley Gore's "You Don't Know Me" playing. Once the clock struck midnight (in real time 8:30 pm), the iconic opening started. The intro was an interpolation of "Miss Americana and the Heart Break Prince" and various sayings of Swift's previous albums. "It's Fearless" shouts out her first rerecord and her first album of the year. "Big Reputation" is a shoutout to the reputation album that was her last with Big Machine Record "And They Said Speak Now" references to the latest re-recording that proved Taylor could write an album all by herself "into folklore" references the first surprise album released in 2020. "My Name is Taylor and I Was Born in 1989" is an exact recording from her 1989 World Tour "Evermore" mentions her second surprise album in 2020. "Loving Him Was Red" gives the album and rerecording more love "Meet Me at Midnight" is the first line of the Midnights album. "Lover" was the album that was supposed to be toured but couldn't due to the pandemic. The line "It's been a long time coming" perfectly encapsulated how everyone felt. "Miss Americana and the Heart Break Prince" was from the album Lover, which was released in 2019. LoverFest was cancelled. Swift let her imagination run wild and released folklore and evermore in 2020. Swift even rereleased Fearless and Red, dubbing them as "Taylor's Version." Swift's last tour was in late 2018. It truly was a long time coming. I was also just coming home from my journey abroad. I was able to enjoy the chills and stadium with my cousin and my best friend. It was a reunion with my American roots and family. Here I am reminiscing the past with my cousin whom I have grown up with. This was my first Taylor Swift concert and it did not disappoint. The rest of the concert was iconic. Currently, my cousin is living in New England for her master's degree. Although she is far away again, we are as close as ever.

My passion for fashion has been influenced by my own cultural identity. I was born to Gujarati Immigrant parents in New Jersey. I was fortunate enough to be surrounded by family and my culture very easily. The state has such a rich culture of Indian-American influence. I always looked forward to Hindu events and holidays as it meant that I was able to dress up in Indian clothes. This led me to attend the Fashion Institute of Technology as a Fashion Business student. My time at the Fashion Institute of Technology has helped me acknowledge that I can have my brand one day. I have taken many creative classes in the past to amplify my knowledge of the design part of the industry. Although I am not going into design, I still have the motivation to one day have my brand and store. I would want my apparel line to be influenced by early 2000s Indian-American culture. The cultural zeitgeist is all about expressing one's self. I would want the womenswear line to be an infusion of Western culture and early 2000s Indian-American culture. The line would pull from the Mcbling style of New York in the 2000s and 2000s Bollywood movies. The Mcbling style consisted of crop tops, low-rise jeans and large accessories. Early 2000s Bollywood movies would have about the same style but had a flair of the Indian countryside to it. The clothing is bright and colorful and it matches the accessories. The line would be playful and colorful. The main color palette would be bold and bright and even glitters. Sequins are a must as they are the main ornaments of Indian garments. The line will mainly consist of basics, fashion items and two-piece sets. Many Indian women's garments typically consist of two-piece sets. The blouse is embellished with diamonds and sequins with either a large skirt or even pants. Basics would include western denim jeans, recycled cotton tops in various colors and even sweaters. Fashion items would have patterned tops, bell-bottom pants and long maxi skirts. The long maxi skirts relate to the long skirts of typical Indian garments. I would also like to include large accessories. This includes large totes and sunglasses. The main part of the line is to not be very logo-heavy. Working in the fashion industry has opened my eyes to understand that a brand is more than a logo. Although some brands have very iconic logos that are important to their clothing, logos change over time. I would want my customers to be more into the clothing rather than the idea of the brand. The customer feeling comfortable and able to appreciate my culture is all that matters to my brand vision.

I imagine myself as a future business owner of my department store that has an experience to it.

Last Fall, I was assigned to read a book for my Sustainability in Merchandising class. Fashionopolis: The Price of Fast Fashion and the Future of Clothes by Dana Thomas, was the required reading that sparked my further interest in how the fashion industry contributes to the environment. The fashion industry from the past 60 years of history was documented and well-versed in this short 320-page book. Throughout the semester, I was able to read more about why many manufacturers in the United States had gone overseas. I also was able to adapt my interactions with the fashion industry into action. The book explains that a pair of jeans cost about 20 gallons of water. The water is not usable again after being dyed continuously. I read about how Levi’s history with sustainability was always strained. I learned about Stella McCartney’s extensive history with animal rights. As well, the impact of the industry has also inserted itself in the environment. The cover of the book is of an ancient statue overlooking a pile of messy clothes. The cover is important as there is a real island in the Pacific Ocean that is made of discarded garments. Garments are not biodegradable. They need to be broken down by hand. This book may have started as required reading but rereading it has opened my eyes to how the industry could be doing better. I may be biased as I am a fashion business student, but fashion impacts everyone. If I could give this book to everyone in the world, I would want them to be able to start a movement of environmental change within the fashion industry.

@pialimbachiya

“Hello Spies” That’s the opening line Jerry Lewis says to get the viewer’s attention, and that’s one of the lines I’ll always remember. I wasn't your average kid; while most kids enjoyed playing sports, this was not the same for me. I had a love for cartoons that most would not. Cartoons would help me escape from reality. I did not want to be just a nine-year-old who had a suburban life; I always wanted to be someone who could change the world. I never truly understood where I got a lot of my personality traits. That is until I decided to rewatch my childhood over the summer of my senior year of high school. BIngewatching my favorite cartoons came out of nowhere. I was just bored and needed something to fill my time. I ended up watching all of Totally Spies. It may have only taken two weeks but I learned a lot about myself. Totally Spies follows three teenage girls, Alex, Sam, and Clover, who live a secret life filled with espionage as their after-school activity. Each episode follows the girls living their lives at their average high school. Yet they are called on to missions to defeat the evil of that 22-minute episode. The animated show displays growth with these girls. The series starts with the girls as freshmen in high school and end with them as freshmen in college. Alex learns that not everyone passes their driver’s test on the first try. Sam learns that her intelligence is not the only thing that should matter to her. Clover learns that she does not need a man to fulfill her life. Instead of playing sports, I decided to become the manager of Girl's Volleyball and the co-ed swim team. I enjoyed doing it so much that I ended up earning a varsity letter. After a long day of school and being a manager for the volleyball team, I wanted nothing more than to go home and turn on Totally Spies. This helped me escape from reality. These lessons in the show reflect on me as a twenty-one-year-old girl. I failed my driver’s test two times. Yet, I still got it. I realized that it was okay to be different. I did not have to be that perfect student who only focused on school. I wanted to be more involved. Being a manager for sports teams created better relationships for me and helped me realize how unique I am. With the help of Alex, Sam and Clover on my tv screen, I was able to see the best version of myself. Feminism has shaped the minds of lots of teenagers today. As someone who is a feminist and enjoys seeing the power of women today, Totally Spies has also created this world in their cartoon. Though the underlying theme of the entire cartoon is that any girl can still be feminine and be hard-core. Feminism shaped the show. Totally Spies was always about teaching young girls how to be themselves. The girls do portray as stereotypical archetypes of girls. Yet they break these stereotypes by developing a personality that defines themselves. Clover acts as a stereotypical Valley girl, who would “die” if her nail broke, though she is willing to break a criminal’s hand to stop them. I am glad that my identity of being a feminist came from my favorite childhood show. I always knew that I can still be hard-core on any given day. As Jerry always said, “Good luck on your mission ladies.”

The Fashion Industry is one of the most influential parts of pop culture. There is a multitude of things that contribute to how a garment is made and marketed. The career path I am pursuing is a merchandiser. A merchandiser can be easily described as a buyer who buys wholesale apparel and sells the clothing in their stores. They collaborate with wholesalers, designers, public relations, finance and logistics. They attend many appointments during fashion week and travel throughout the globe for different designers. Merchandisers have the choice to see how designers reflect their stores. My recent work history has allowed me to interact with merchandisers. I have recently worked as a wholesales intern at a showroom. Wholesale is the opposite side of the merchandising sprectrum. Wholesale is selling and merchandising is buying. During my internship, I have filled out invoices and completed eccommerce information. I was able to communicate with many buyers to further improve the showroom and buyer's business relationship. As a student of the Fashion Institute of Technology, my major allows me benefits to accomplish this career path. I have become certified in Microsoft Exel and have experience with First Insight. As well, my education has allowed me many amenities that a merchandiser uses. I have used forecasting websites, such as FashionSnoops and WGSN, to predict future fashion trends. This sites are used to help predict future sales for the merchandiser's store. The most important class I have taken throughout my two and a half years at college would be Sustainability in Merchandising. Sustainability is descibed as ethical and environmental progressiveness of the fashion industry. This includes using less synthetic fibers, ethical labor laws and the advancement of future innovations. Examples of synthetic fibers are polyester, nylon and rayon. These fibers are common within many basics of clothing but they are not biodegradable. As a merchandiser, I would want to invest in designers who use organic and recylced materials. Organic Cotton is very common amonst several retail brands. Ethical labor laws include disuading child labor laws and allowing proper working conditions in a designer or retailer's factory. By disuading child labor laws, the fashion industry will have a better reputation. Allowing proper working conditions allows for better quality clothing to be prioritized. Quality over quantity allows wins and should win in the fashion industry. I would want to invest in more domestic factories that allows for better working conditions. Merchandising may be fabulous but it will take a lot of work to improve the fashion industry. But it needs to start somewhere and with someone.

Student loan debt is a modern day horror story. When I first found out about credit, loans, collectors and interest, I was super scared of constantly being in debt. However, I was able to obtain a car and a credit card. I have maintained paying off my car every month for the past 24 months. My car payments are automatic every month before the due date. I have never been late on a credit card and car payment. I was hyper aware of my growing debt and constantly scrutinizing myself for payments. In the beginning of my college life, I started putting some money towards the principal balance. I am privileged enough to be able to live at home and then go to school. As a commuter, my cost of attendance was by $3,000 due to both COVID and commuting. Now as a junior in college, I have accrued over $12,000 in federal and $5,135 in private student loans. I have already paid off $700 of the principal. My current principal is now at $11,300. I also get parent plus loans that amount to $25,722. My current plan is to put $50 into my federal loans and $50 into my private loans; this occurs during the months of February to May and September to December. My alternate plan is to put $100 into my federal loans and $100 into my private loans; this also occurs from the months of June to August and January. I am able to afford paying off my principal with proper budgeting and working part time in retail. My future student loans will occur to over $60,000. My predicted deductions will be $2,600 total before the interest occurs. After my loan deferment ends, I will make automatic payments towards my loan financiers. With experience of having automatic payments toward car payments, I will be more than ready to take on my loans. I understand that loans take years to pay off. However, with working and making a savings for a while, I can challenge myself to further pay off my loan payments. I hope to make double the payments per month. An example would be $120 is due at the end of the month. I would put in $240 for that month to try and combat the interest. My biggest priority is to also combat the loans with the most interest first. The private loans range from 11.99% to 27%. My private collector predicts that the final date to pay off the loan would be 12/12/2039. I hope to get that date shrunken down to 12/12/2030. My federal loans have a significantly less interest rate ranging from 2.75% to 3.73%. I also plan to constantly work towards a better future. I also hope to knock my loans further by getting a full time job. With a full time job, I hope to eventually knock down my monthly rate by paying triple the amount. This plan and budget will help me try to ensure financial freedom by the time I turn 35.

My mental health fluctuates throughout the years. Sometimes I get brain fog and sometimes I feel very manic. My background as an Indian-American Hindu woman has influenced my beliefs with my mental health. In my culture, mental health is not always talked about. During my junior year of high school, I was dealing with body image issues and my parents were constantly fighting. I felt that I was utterly powerless in the whole situation. Unfortunately this did belief system did not help me in my adolescence. I struggled with difficult thoughts of ending my life. My beliefs in religion did not help me at all. My difficulties were improved throughout my relationships. I first encountered my AP Psychology teacher about my declining mental health. That teacher honestly was a better support system that the school's guidance department. She took me out of class and had me sit with a school psychiatrist. I was able to pour out my feelings and detail it into my self worth. My parents were contacted and they encouraged me to go to therapy. My parents supported me with unconditional love and helped build my mental health. My therapist helped me get through my issues. I was able to talk through my feelings and gain a sense of happiness. My cousins were also the biggest sources of support. My cousins are all older and are like older sisters to me. After that first session with the psychiatrist, my cousins were rotating to watch me. I was never alone and they never made it be seen as a forced babysitting gig. At the end of the academic year, I was able to pull my grades and get into the National Honor Society. After the whole stint with the worst mental health ever, I became more open minded with how I interacted with others. I stopped judging others based on their opinions. I started to distance from people when they seem angry to try and not take things too personally. With my current potions I also influence the mental health of others. I am a current front end supervisor at a grocery store. I started working as a cashier fresh out of high school. Within my first year I was promoted to a front end supervisor. As a supervisor, I maintain whenever cashiers need to go on a break and lunches. Most of the cashiers are young and try to be fast. They want to do their jobs fast and get it done as soon as possible. Since they are young, I try to encourage them to not burn out. I tell them that if they want they can take their breaks earlier if time pertains to it. I help cashiers step off the floor when there is a difficult customer. I hope to enter the corporate world after I graduate college. With my career aspirations, the corporate culture has seemed to change. I am studying to be a fashion merchandiser. I am a current junior and am and intern at a showroom. The showroom manager tries to encourage employees to take a lunch on time. As well, they are encouraged to leave on time and not stay after hours. This sentiment means that the employer does not want the employee's mental and physical health are maintained to gather proper work ethic. This is inspirational as I am juggling my semester as a student, an intern and a part time employee. Even though I had a bad experience of my own mental health in the past, I would not wish that on anyone else. I believe in kindness and that no one should be alone. I have been able to distance myself and become closer to relatives based on our respective mental health. With my career aspirations, I believe that corporate culture has become better and allows employees to be cared for at their profession. Even with my background culture, the past four years of my life has shaped me to be the open minded woman I am today.

As a college junior, I am constantly thinking about my future. I am a first generation Indian-American, bisexual and I constantly question my gender. Professionally, I am a fashion business management student at the Fashion Institute of Technology. I hope to be a buyer for a department store. There are many obstacles that will impact my dream job. A buyer or merchandiser is responsible for budgeting, planning and allocating your store's future collections for a higher margin. The job entails a heavy skill in mathematics, excel, budgeting and business communications. In the fashion industry, buyers buy for the store's next season's collection. Large orders are done during Market week. Market is the behind the scenes action of fashion week. This is when buyers visit showrooms of designers to view the collections in an intimate collection and take notes on what their stores will collect next season. The Fashion business management program is mostly about going into the buying and merchandising career. There would be competition from my classmates when applications roll around after graduation. This is especially harder as I go to school in New York City. The city is one of the many fashion capitals in the world. Another obstacle could be lack of experience. I finally got my first internship throughout my professional career. I am actual on the opposite side of my dream career: wholesale. Wholesale is when the designers are pushing their collection to buyers to make a huge profit off their collections. The more styles bought, the more successful the collection has been. Although I have learned a lot on the designer side, I have not had a hands on experience on the merchandiser side. The biggest obstacle of my dream career is my location. I hope to have a dream job and live in New York City. The average rent in New York City was recorded to be $5000 a month. In order to afford school, I commute from New Jersey to New York City. With low accessibility to the city, I could potentially miss work, meetings or photoshoots that would impact my career. In order to remove these obstacles, I have plans. I refresh my resume and LinkedIN every month. I try to make my resume with one page with more skills and weeding out insufficient work experience. I also do have an interactive portfolio. During my sophomore year, I was able to make a website with my portfolio from that class. Being happy and proud of my work, I transformed my website to curate to my wants and needs. I blog on it on the side to make the website relevant. This will help and make my application stand out. My lack of experience can improve. I am still in college and I have been applying towards merchandising internships for the future. As well, I have been able to make connections within my network at the showroom I intern at. The last situation actually cannot be solved without proper budgeting. I am a college student with a paid internship and a part time job. I work as a Front End Supervisor at a grocery store. Although it is. minimum wage, it has taught me to budget to pay for my car. I hope to be able to work and live in New York City by the time I am 28 years old.

Student loan debt is a modern day horror story. When I first found out about credit, loans, collectors and interest, I was super scared of constantly being in debt. However, I was able to obtain a car and a credit card. I have maintained paying off my car every month for the past 24 months. My car payments are automatic every month before the due date. I have never been late on a credit card and car payment. I was hyper aware of my growing debt and constantly scrutinizing myself for payments. In the beginning of my college life, I started putting some money towards the principal balance. I am privileged enough to be able to live at home and then go to school. As a commuter, my cost of attendance was by $3,000 due to both COVID and commuting. Now as a junior in college, I have accrued over $12,000 in federal and $5,135 in private student loans. I have already paid off $700 of the principal. My current principal is now at $11,300. I also get parent plus loans that amount to $25,722. My current plan is to put $50 into my federal loans and $50 into my private loans; this occurs during the months of February to May and September to December. My alternate plan is to put $100 into my federal loans and $100 into my private loans; this also occurs from the months of June to August and January. I am able to afford paying off my principal with proper budgeting and working part time in retail. My future student loans will occur to over $60,000. My predicted deductions will be $2,600 total before the interest occurs. After my loan deferment ends, I will make automatic payments towards my loan financiers. With experience of having automatic payments toward car payments, I will be more than ready to take on my loans. I understand that loans take years to pay off. However, with working and making a savings for a while, I can challenge myself to further pay off my loan payments. I hope to make double the payments per month. An example would be $120 is due at the end of the month. I would put in $240 for that month to try and combat the interest. My biggest priority is to also combat the loans with the most interest first. The private loans range from 11.99% to 27%. My private collector predicts that the final date to pay off the loan would be 12/12/2039. I hope to get that date shrunken down to 12/12/2030. My federal loans have a significantly less interest rate ranging from 2.75% to 3.73%. I also plan to constantly work towards a better future. I also hope to knock my loans further by getting a full time job. With a full time job, I hope to eventually knock down my monthly rate by paying triple the amount. This plan and budget will help me try to ensure financial freedom by the time I turn 35.