Since childhood, I’ve been drawn to organizing, creating, and bringing people together. I planned Halloween parties, made fake lesson plans and homework for my younger brother, and loved the process of designing experiences—even if I didn’t yet have a name for what I was doing. I’ve always been creatively inspired, but I never found a home in traditional artistic disciplines. I sang in choir, took dance classes, but never pursued visual nor fine arts. I never considered myself “an artist”—a person who, according to Merriam-Webster, creates art (such as painting, sculpture, music, or writing) using conscious skill and creative imagination. Yet, using my conscious skill and creative imagination, I continued to gravitate towards making things more beautiful, intentional, and communal. Despite this, I had always felt like my options to create were limited to only the fine or classic art courses. My interests and goals then shifted away from artistic pursuits.
My interest in global affairs, human rights, social justice, and politics took shape late in high school—during the growth of social justice movements like Black Lives Matter and all the online political commentary during the COVID-19 pandemic. Afterwards, during my final years of high school, I began to take classes like Global Human Rights, World Cultures, and Journalism–classes that had only just been introduced to my high school–for the very first time. These experiences opened my eyes to a broader world I hadn’t been taught about before. I became obsessed with world geography quizzes and international news. It felt like I was playing catch-up with a world that had been hidden from me by my traditional U.S. public school curriculum.
That curiosity followed me into college, where I initially thought international relations was the right path. “But I quickly felt disillusioned—grappling with how the principle of state sovereignty can restrict meaningful diplomacy or humanitarian intervention left me feeling hopeless. Still, I remained deeply committed to understanding global cultures and systems—just not through traditional IR frameworks.
Nurtured by my interest in global affairs, I have always had a natural interest in language, and later developed a passion for intercultural learning. I’ve been passionate about Spanish since fourth grade, and I followed that passion all the way to study abroad in Sevilla, Spain in spring of 2023. While in Spain, I interned as a social media coordinator and graphic designer in a spanish-speaking office. This is one of the many spaces in which I gained confidence navigating multilingual and multicultural spaces. My work there allowed me to create with tools like Canva, even though I had never seen myself as a “graphic designer”. I got to take basic templates or assignments and design visually compelling, clear, and inviting media. This experience further solidified my love for global learning and for design, as well as my desire to work cross-culturally.
This intersection—between creativity, community, and global learning—finally came into focus once I started working at the Lion’s Pause, where I help plan events and contribute to marketing and design. I realized that I can create things people want to engage with: events that are visually thoughtful, logistically sound, and socially meaningful. That experience, combined with my internship as a wedding coordinator this past summer, helped me recognize that my skills in event planning, spatial and visual design, and intercultural and inclusive thinking can and should work together.
Through this individual major, I want to study how intentional design—of events, spaces, and visual media—can foster community and amplify cultural knowledge. My academic path doesn’t exist in one department. It lives at the intersection of design, global community engagement, event planning, and creative project management. I aim to explore how aesthetic and spatial design, communication strategy, and technical media production come together to shape meaningful events and experiences. This includes learning hands-on skills—such as Adobe Suite and camera operation—as well as developing a sharper design sensibility and understanding the ethical and social implications of media. I want to practice making things, like multimedia projects and events, and analyze how these designs engage and impact diverse communities. My goal is to study how thoughtfully produced media and experiences can ethically inform and connect people in an increasingly digital and global world.