I always knew that I was going to end up somewhere close to New York City, if not in it. I was considering journalism, but I was much more passionate about art and design, even if I was inexperienced. When I was little, I would make books about my dreams, and I evolved into an avid drawer. I spent my high school years learning Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign. There was nobody to teach me, so my skills were learned on my own. I didn’t even know what an Exacto knife was.

THE PURCHASE ART WORLD
I looked at Pratt and FIT as well, but as soon as I stepped onto Purchase’s campus, I was sold. It was spring. All of the trees were in bloom. There were students lounging outside soaking up the sun. Purchase was a little refuge amongst the hustle of the bordering cityscape. And small enough to provide intimacy to study and live comfortably. Even though it was 30 minutes from the city, everything was still accessible. Professors encouraged field trips to Chelsea galleries and world-renowned museums such as the Met and MoMA.
Though Purchase is a conglomerate of art and design, music, theatre, and dance, I think that Art+Design is its most distinguished conservatory. We have our own personal museum, the Neuberger, with a private art collection featuring the works of Willem De Kooning and Jackson Pollock. The outdoor sculpture collection is exquisite. One of the most prominent pieces is the Henry Moore sculpture that greets you when you reach the campus. I studied his work in a contemporary art class. I didn’t realize how big of a deal he was until my professor told me how much that sculpture was actually worth!

SENSUOUS SERIFS
I study graphic design. After taking Word and Image I and II with two very noteworthy professors, my perception of the visual world is completely different. I can’t look through a magazine or read a billboard without noticing the typeface. The anatomy of type, depending on appearance, can look really appealing. I crack jokes about kerning and leading, and I see serifs as very sensuous things. Knowing the difference between good and bad design in the industry is very important. The professors here give you the imagery, tactics and examples to make the right moves once you reach the reality of the design world.
I remember entering Bill Deere’s class one day in complete awe: the walls were covered completely with bags—shopping bags, feed bags, even a bag that was decorated by a bum in New York City. My class was transformed from a casual design critique to a corporate jungle of paper and plastic. Bill showed us how the material used in a design makes us perceive it in a different way: cheap material, cheap product, or expensive material, expensive product.

CHEESE CLUB
Depending upon how many students come is contingent upon how much funding we get for our weekly cheese meeting. Believe it or not, it’s one the largest funded clubs on campus. We get cheeses from Murray’s in NYC. It is basically free tasting, 4-6 p.m. After awhile you develop your favorites, one of mine is Piave, an Italian nutty cheese.
There is a lot of variation too: bleu, soft, hard, really potent, really mild. You taste just about everything. Sometimes, you’re privileged to have cheeses that are almost illegal; the aging is a huge factor in whether or not a cheese is legal. In order to buy a cheese here, it has to be aged for two months or so. There was one occurrence when we got a very young, runny cheese and it was sooooo good.

SUMMER PLANS
I spent last summer in Manhattan as a design intern and photographer at FILA, where I worked directly underneath the senior creative director. Together, we developed the branding for FILA Nautical, a boating shoe that was launched in Spring 2008. I was so excited to see my packaging designs in a commercial on television. My schooling has made me confident that I have the potential, at the level of a student, to immerse myself in the “real world” and contribute my skills to an employer in the arts.
This summer I will be living in New York City with graphic design friends. We all have internships doing design. It's exciting because we are all living away from home for the first time. A bunch of kids living outside college and home. It will be crazy, I’m sure, buying food, paying for transportation, trying to pay rent. Everyone is working hard to enhance her education. Odd jobs here and there. One of my friends is going to be a security guard in Starbucks!