After having spent the last eight years at The Linsly School, and college being some distant almost imaginative event, I have come to face the quite surreal experience of paying my first deposit to the school where I will spend at least the next four years of my life. Ever since middle school I have known what I have wanted to study, art. I guess I could consider myself fortunate since many students my age are still unsure of what they want to do. However, there is always that voice in the back of my mind that refuses to be silent saying, "Are you sure you want to do this?”

When I am often asked what I want to do in my future, the tone of a friendly conversation changes when I say “Art.” This is then usually followed with “Are you sure?” or, “You’re so smart wouldn’t you rather…” Yes. First, of all, I am sure that I want to study something that has brought me joy all of my life. Second, do you even know what we can do? We can identify hundreds of shades of a color from cadmium to alizarin crimson when all you see is merely “red.” We can be given a photograph and reproduce it perfectly, often times even better than the original. We can spend hours bringing an image to life that only you could maybe dream up in the depths of your imagination. Third, what gives you the right to tell me that I am “wasting my talents” when you don’t even know me?

Every year at the start of the first semester, we are all given a paper where we are to write our semester goals and year long goals for this school year. They’re usually pretty much the same: maintain first honors, work hard, do better in math, etc. Well, my days of only achieving knowledge at school is over. My academic goals after I graduate high school will become more than just trying to get good grades and learn. I want to put my artistic skills that I learn over the next four years to use. I want to be able to prove them wrong, that I am not simply choosing an easy major, that I am not throwing away my potential. The art I bring into the world will indeed have a purpose.