People frequently ask, on hearing about my intended art major, "And why are you interested in graphic design?" Various superficial answers surface: the money—from my fantastic Society6 portfolio; the fame—maybe I could accrue 10,000 followers on Pinterest; the praise—Steven Heller personally recommended my book. But the same answer constantly presents itself: I just love beautiful things. I love good books, whose writing is well-crafted; I also love traditional, aesthetic beauty. My interest in graphic design has become increasingly...

The further into my degree I get, the more closely my educational and career objectives relate to one another. I am also gaining a better idea of what skills I need to carry with me beyond school. Those skills have become my educational goals. First, I want to learn about other areas of design with which I have no experience, like web design and letterforms (two classes I am taking this semester). I am woefully ignorant of UI/UX design,...

My first two years of university have been amazing. My incredible parents helped me through my first year; the generosity of others—Bill Fischer with the Community Foundation, David and Betty Jones through UofL, and all of you with the Hite Scholarship—made my second year possible. It’s time for me to start thinking about my junior year, though. I applied to five scholarships over Christmas break, but won’t be hearing back for a while; I have a...

I wrote the first personal statement as a callow high school graduate. It makes me wince now. But if I could get accepted into the art program on it, hey, take heart. The others are essays I wrote later, in the program (yay!) presenting my goals and financial need and asking for scholarships. (I received $4000 for this pair.)

I only interviewed with one school (ironically, the school that I couldn't list here as having applied to!): the School of Advertising Art. I took my meager portfolio, petrified. The lady who interviewed me was really nice and tried to make me comfortable (I hope your experience will be so pleasant), but what sold me--she said afterwards--was my "articulate explanation of [my] artwork." This actually took several steps of prep, so here we go. 1. I made a list before I went of the work I wanted to take, and where each piece was located. I was taking several sketchbooks, loose...

It was an open house day. It was an open house day at the closest university to my house. It was an open house day at this university I told my parents was the last place I wanted to go and only applied to because they insisted. And now my dad wanted to go to this open house. We went to The Army Bunker--seriously, dad, I told him, this is the ugliest "art" building I have ever seen, don't you hate it??--and did a little tour of the different majors and studio arts, finally working around to the graphic...