If I’m being honest, I didn’t grow up as someone who had a clean, linear plan.

Right now, I describe myself as a multidisciplinary artist—I work across animation, illustration, and music—but animation has always been my anchor. It’s the one thing I keep returning to, no matter what medium I experiment with. 

I love things that are loud, disruptive, and obnoxious. 

To me, creativity is an expression of the soul. It’s messy, disjointed, and speaks a language of its own. It’s about looking at the world with the same wonder that you did when you were a kid. 

But in high school, I wasn’t that clear about any of this.

High School: Torn Between Passion and “Practicality”

In high school, I was stuck between what I thought were two completely different worlds: fine arts and economics. Treating them as separate disciplines felt more like an administrative convenience rather than the truth. 

Somewhere along the way, we were sold the lie that your passion and profession should be lined up. It’s honestly super presumptuous and gives companies a little too much credit for my liking. Your life’s work will rarely be reflected in the job that you do to pay your bills. The things that shape us most don’t have to exist within an academic program or career path to be worth pursuing. 

So yeah, I kept pursuing my interest in economics informally, and it eventually turned into a deep interest in history and politics. It is now something that I engage with every time I make. 

I did the IB curriculum in 11th and 12th grade, and my subject choices reflected that confusion:

1. HL: Physics, Economics, Art
2. SL: English, Spanish AB, Math

Looking back, those choices were driven more by fear than by clarity. I think a lot of students—especially those considering creative fields—are constantly negotiating with this idea of security. You start thinking:

1. “If I take physics, maybe I can do architecture.”
2. “If I take economics, maybe I can build a business.”

There is a certain level of corporate prudity that influences the way people think about art. These narratives really get pushed on you as a kid, but the truth is, you don’t need an elitist job to prove that you’ve made something of yourself. 

Outside academics, though, I was always creating. I had a lot of access and a lot of encouragement, so I took that privilege, and I ran with it. I’ve been singing for as long as I can remember, too, performing throughout my entire life. 

At school, I threw myself at anything art or design related. Eventually, it got to the point where if something needed designing, I was the first person people thought of. 

Applying to College: Two Very Different Futures

When it came time to apply, I narrowed it down to two top choices:

1. Carnegie Mellon University (Economics and Design)
2. Rhode Island School of Design (Animation)

I got into both.

It looked like a difficult decision on paper, but my reasoning was surprisingly simple. I chose RISD because I believed in the community rather than the institution. I didn’t feel the same creative energy from CMU’s art environment, and that mattered more to me than anything else.

At the time, my dream was pretty conventional—I wanted to work at a major animation studio like Disney. 

Four years of art school complicated that. As my interest in politics deepened—especially around questions of labour, ownership, and ethical production–that dream didn’t hold up as well. I started to see these studios for what they were: companies with their own priorities driven by profit, hierarchy, and control. 

It didn’t kill the dream, though. It reframed it. I started thinking more about community-based art and interaction. It made me more interested in how and why things get made, not just what gets made. 

I think a part of me—combined with a lot of 16-year-old angst—used to feel like “no one gets me.” But looking back, it wasn’t even that no one understood me; I don’t think I even understood myself. I never really had the time to. With school and everything else that high school demands, there’s just no space to actually sit with who you are.

I see it even now with my sister. She just finished her boards, and I watched her go three days without sleeping. That doesn’t feel like learning or productivity to me—that feels like torture. It makes you question what these systems are really designed to do, because that’s not how learning should look.

At RISD, it’s interesting because, in many ways, it exists within a bubble of privilege. There were a lot of people with access—access to wealth, to networks, to the art world. The art world itself can be incredibly exclusive and elitist. RISD is not exempt from that. I don’t want to sit here and say it’s the best place in the world, because it has real flaws, and it would be unfair to ignore them.

At the same time, being surrounded by artists pushed me to think more deeply, not just about art, but about myself, where my ideas come from, and what art actually means in my life. I’m a strong believer that art is inherently political, and a lot of the work I create now is intentional in that sense. I try to make sure my work isn’t coming out of a vacuum, but is instead grounded in the world around me.

The RISD Application: What Actually Got Me In

I think there’s a huge misconception about art school admissions. You don’t need to be an all-rounder or have achieved technical perfection at 18. 

Yes, my grades were strong (I was averaging in the 90s, I think).

The application included a portfolio, the RISD application assignment, Common App activties and my Common App essay (which was about my lifelong fear of butterflies—something my relatives were convinced would get me rejected). My activities included design-related ones (leading my school MUN’s design team and other such leadership activities), and music, because that is something I devoted a lot of time to since I was a kid.

But what mattered far more was the strength of my ideas in my portfolio. 

My portfolio was essentially divided into portraiture, landscape, concept, and abstraction. They showed off the different ways in which I looked at things—sometimes through people, sometimes through the environment, and sometimes by stripping everything down to its simplest idea or form. 

RISD, in particular, is a school that prides itself on experimental work and material exploration, and I wanted my portfolio to reflect that. I approached every piece with a mixed media lens, allowing sculpture, embroidery, and digital to all exist somewhat cohesively within my portfolio.

I’m not exaggerating when I say I built most of my portfolio in under two months. It was chaotic—I was juggling IB submissions at the same time, barely sleeping—but it forced me to commit fully without overthinking.

RISD isn’t looking for technical mastery; they're looking for clarity of thought. They’re asking: how do you see the world, can you recognise the patterns in your own work, and are your choices intentional? 

The strongest high school portfolios I’ve seen weren’t technically perfect, but they were thoughtful. And that’s what actually matters. 

Do Grades Matter for Art School?

This is something a lot of students worry about.

From my experience, grades mattered more to me than they did to RISD.

I think what institutions are really trying to assess is curiosity. I love learning, and that is the outlook that matters in college. At the end of the day, making art is a form of problem-solving:

1. You have an idea
2. You figure out how to execute it
3. You navigate constraints (materials, time, resources)

To me, this process is not that different from solving a mathematical equation.

The issue is that many education systems—especially in India—prioritise memorisation over critical thinking, where many just regurgitate information that was blindly fed to them. You can have great grades but not necessarily engage deeply with what you’re learning.

What stands out instead is: Your ability to think, question, and approach problems with inhibited imagination.

Did IB Help?

This is complicated.

IB can be helpful—but it depends heavily on your school and teachers. The curriculum itself doesn’t guarantee a certain kind of thinking. In my case, some teachers were great and others… not so much. 

IB did help me in one specific way: handling workload. RISD is intense, and IB prepared me for that volume of work.

But in terms of creative thinking? A lot of that came from outside the classroom.

Honestly, some of my most meaningful artistic inspiration comes from simply observing and talking to people.  Some of the best inspirations I’ve gotten are through seemingly mundane things like a bus driver tapping on the wheel while jamming to music, or someone walking down the streets vibing to music. Essentially, paying attention to how people exist and interact in the real world. 

That kind of observation has influenced my work more than any structured curriculum, even in college. Maybe save your money. 

Academic Life at RISD

RISD is both freeing and demanding.

1. Studio classes are 6 hours long, three times a week
2. There’s a huge amount of work outside class
3. No one forces you to excel—you either push yourself or you don’t, you have to choose to hold yourself accountable

You can:

1. Do the bare minimum and pass
2. Or completely immerse yourself and spend nights in the studio

I chose the latter.

One of the biggest adjustments for me was shifting away from grade-based motivation. For most of my life, I had been creating for validation: grades, approval, outcomes.

At RISD, I had to learn how to create for myself.

And that’s harder than it sounds. 

Exploring Beyond Animation

Honestly? I just talk to a lot of people. The world will talk to you if you just give it a chance. 

I also studied a lot of history, biology, and political theory. I had the really cool opportunity to take a quantum physics class with an MIT professor who earned a degree in physics and then chose to explore holographic art at RISD. I made it a point to ask my professors about their backgrounds to learn from them beyond academics—their creative journeys and how their lives shaped their trajectories. I also explored my interest in history further, specifically WW2, to challenge the versions I had learned before, approaching it with a new perspective.

Everything you learn will change the way you think. I love having my perspective challenged, I love being wrong, and more importantly, I hate being the smartest person in the room. 

Rethinking the “Dream Job”

When I entered RISD, I wanted to work at major animation studios.

Over time, that changed.

I began questioning the nature of corporate creative work, the systems behind large institutions, and, more importantly, what kind of impact I actually wanted to have. What did I want my own story to mean?

I started freelancing for musicians when I was around 17 years old and have continued working in that realm since. I’m 24 now. I would never tell anyone to go full-time freelance unless they’re more established. That would be reckless. But it’s a great way to keep meeting really cool people and work on some awesome projects!

There isn’t one “right” path—but it does mean that art school can fundamentally shift how you define success. For me, it definitely did; the me entering freshman year 6 years ago is very different from the me who graduated 2 years ago. 

Work, Internships, and Financial Reality

I worked a lot throughout college. 

I worked part-time at the Edna W. Lawrence Nature Lab throughout college. This was one of my favourite jobs that I’ve ever worked. It was RISD’s own personal natural history museum, filled with hundreds of taxidermies, bones, microscopic specimens, live animals, and incredible resources and facilities. It was so different from anything I saw myself doing career-wise, but it was such a fulfilling and educational experience. I love and miss that place. 

I also kept up with my freelancing. One of my favourite jobs was being on the animation team for the music video ‘One of Those Days’ by Zach Bia featuring Lil Yachty. I got a lot of jobs through word of mouth. It’s important to build a connection through friendship and not just menial networking—most people can see right through you when you’re not being genuine. 

Balancing work and school is difficult, but it’s also necessary, especially in creative fields.

Internships, in my experience, are what you make of them. Some people pursue structured corporate internships, and others take unconventional routes—learning from communities, experimenting, or working independently. There are platforms like NYFA.org and Handshake that can help interested students connect with professional opportunities, and even career advancement support within RISD itself.

I’m definitely following what my parents think is an unconventional path, but it is the reality for a lot of artists. I work a random part-time job and take on the art jobs that I want to do on the side. It gives me a lot of flexibility creatively, but not a lot financially. 

I have a couple of friends who followed a more traditional path. One of my very close friends went to Parsons, and every summer she did a major internship at a big company. She eventually secured a position at a large corporate design firm. But I think now she’s starting to realise that corporate design isn’t necessarily the world she wants to be in—it’s not the kind of environment that really inspires her.

I think it ties into something you experience in art school. When you’re there, you look at bad design and think, “damn, this designer sucks.” But once you graduate, that perspective shifts. You look at the same kind of work and think, “Whoever made this probably didn’t have a choice and had a subpar boss with no vision.” 

That change in mindset comes from understanding how much autonomy you lose when you’re no longer creating for yourself. You have to immerse yourself in the world; art can not be isolated from visceral human experiences.

There isn’t one correct path.

What matters is curiosity:

You can’t create for the world if you haven’t experienced the world.

Community and Identity

The most valuable part of RISD, for me, was the people.

I found some of my closest friends there—people I still live and work with today. Being surrounded by other artists creates a kind of shared understanding that’s hard to replicate elsewhere.

Art is about community. 

I also connected with many international students navigating similar in-between identities as I.

RISD, like many art schools, exists within a broader system of privilege and access—and that’s something I became more aware of over time. Being in that environment pushed me to think more critically about who gets access to art, how art is valued, and what responsibility comes with being able to create. 

More broadly, art school encourages constant questioning—every “if” and “why.”

1. Why are you occupying this space?
2. Are you the right person to occupy it?
3. And what does it even mean to engage with space in the first place?

Final Advice

If you’re considering art school, this is what I’d leave you with:

1. Stop chasing perfection, it doesn’t exist
2. Focus on how you think, not just what you produce
3. Observe everything: people, spaces, patterns
4. Put yourself in unfamiliar environments
5. And most importantly, fall in love with the process of making

Art is not a linear path. It’s uncertain, subjective, and constantly evolving.

But if you’re willing to engage with that uncertainty, it can also be one of the most meaningful things you do.