Hello my name is Rebecca Black and I will be a junior at northern michigan university. I am a Art and Design student with the concentration of metalsmithing and sculpture. My hopes are to one day have my own shop and sell jewelry, blades, and other metalwork. I first started working with metal in high-school, taking a jewelry art class where I learned the basics of jewelry making like cutting out the metal and different type of connections. From this I realized this is what I seriously enjoyed doing and knew I wanted to go into a career working with metal. I did temporary attend a community College for welding and was an A/ B student. I really enjoyed welding, but was much more fond of the idea of the artist aspect of metal working, I wanted to learn more techniques and metal arts. Which is what lead to my transfer to Northern Michigan university to study metalsmithing. So far I have taken a basic jewelry class and a blacksmithing class, in the fall I will be learning sheet metal forming. I seriously enjoy learning different techniques and forms of metal working, I'm looking forward to learning more in the coming years. I know my GPA doesn't meet the requirement, but its due to an unfortunate event I delt with my freshmen year in college that was traumatic. Though with my GPA not meeting the requirements I understand I won't be chosen. I was just excited to finally see a scholarship for someone in my field. Being an art student tends to be frowned apon from what I grew up knowing, once I told my family what I will be studying it two of my family members my grandma and one of my sister admitted they wanted to go into art. They were both really proud of me for not letting anyone's judgment get in the way of my decision. I hope I can encourage others around me to not be scared by other's opnions and go into the field they want. Some other fact about me are that I have four sisters, I am the second to youngest. I have done a lot of volunteering between my church, being a ZooTeen at the Toledo Zoo in ohio, and more. I choose northern for college not only for my program, but the schools placement being surrounded by nature, we are constantly visted by wildlife like fox, deer, porcupine, birds, and more. Growing up I was involved in a lot of sports, in highschool I was a four sport athlete the sports I participated in were varsity swim, varsity soccer, varsity/club archery, and varsity bowling. Other things I participated in during highschool were three after school clubs (dungeons and dragons, quiz bowl, and Drama) and marching band. Lastly one of my favorite fun facts about me is that I taught myself how to make chainmail and have made some things like crop-tops, bracelets , and neck pieces.