ART SCHOOL STATEMENT

Stephanie Acosta

“Come on mom, let's go,” I said, waiting and wanting to go already. “Let’s go now.” 

“Okay, okay," my mother looked down at me and shook her head at my five year old self. "Let’s go.” 

As we stepped out of the house I couldn’t wait to go and visit my favorite place in the world. As we hit the road my heart started to pound at the feeling of getting to our final destination. Soon enough we got there and as my mom parked the car I hurried to get out. I stood in parking lot of our neighborhood Ralph's just staring and looking up at what to me was the best thing in the world.

“Mom, come here.” I pulled my mother’s arm and asked her softly, “You see that poster mom? Do you see it?”

“Yeah, what about it?” she asked.

“Soon, I'm going to design something like that.”

My mother looked at the billboard, then back at me, and laughed. “Mija, you're crazy," she said. "Let's just go shopping.”

Since then, my dream and passion has been to become famous for my art, and most of all for my imagination. As the years went by I started drawing more and more. I would see something at a store or a restaurant, and I would go home and start to draw it to make it different or new. I can remember friends making fun of me saying, “Why do you waste your time with drawing?” Even my sixth grade teacher said to me, “You shouldn’t waste your time drawing. You need a career that will earn more money than an artist.” I started to lose my hope of becoming an artist and I tried to look at other careers. When I got to the seventh grade, however, I realized that no other career could make me happy as one in art could.

            Now that my high school days are ending I am determined to prove to myself that I can do anything if I put my mind to it. It came to me that since the day of the billboard that I use to see, I would like to a career in graphic design.

            Since I knew that I didn’t want to go to a Cal State or a UC system I would have to search for colleges that would offer what I was looking for; a college that both offered a good education in Art (Graphic Design) and also helped with job placement. There were many colleges that offered this but what caught my attention the most was that The Art Institute offered more classes in the major I wished to study than any other art schools. So my parents and I visited the campus and found that The Art Institute was a small school (which I wanted). Ever since that day The Art Institute has been my dream college and I know it will help me to attain my career goal.