As a 6-year-old girl, art (music and dance included) was everything to me. I spent my days drawing, experimenting with all types of digital softwares, and playing with color, shapes, and lines. I even had a DeviantArt account for a long while. Creating felt like a language I understood before I had words for it.

Throughout elementary and middle school, art remained incredibly important to me. I eagerly participated in school art competitions and was even selected to create drawings for the local fire department. Yes, art was my hobby, but it was also how I connected with my community, people, and myself.

However, when I entered high school, my focus shifted almost entirely toward STEM. For a long time, I believed I had to choose - that passion and practicality existed on opposite ends of a spectrum and that pursuing both would mean losing focus. Although I could not resist attending two acting schools outside of my regular high school, one for theater and one for television and film, I convinced myself that success required narrowing my interests, choosing only one: Art or STEM?

Even though I still chose STEM in college, art never fully left me, no matter how hard I tried to suppress it. I consistently enrolled in all types of art classes to fulfill elective requirements, and even drew my first commissioned wedding portrait outside of school. Meanwhile, in my programming, math, and statistics courses, professors often used flowers and patterns in nature to illustrate mathematical principles. I found it pretty and beautiful - the way logic and nature intertwined so seamlessly and naturally.

After graduating from college, I began to understand that life does not have to be defined by a single path. Life is not one color - it is an entire palette. The analytical and the artistic do not cancel each other out; rather, they deepen one another. The precision I developed through STEM actually sharpened my creative instincts, while art continued to ground me in curiosity, freedom, and peace.

In 2022, while sourcing gift-wrapping paper and ribbons for my small gift-wrapping hobby, I frequently encountered floral bouquet designs in my searches. The following year, I enrolled in my first floral arrangement class, dedicating some time to creativity after years of focusing primarily on building my STEM career. The experience prompted me to reflect on an earlier artistic milestone: being one of only three students accepted into the top-performing art program at Frank Sinatra School of the Arts - an opportunity I still regard with a lot of wonder about an artistic path not taken.

Ultimately, I have chosen to unite these passions through a more intentional commitment to art - without reservation. Life is a vibrant palette full of possibility, and I no longer believe I must choose just one color.

-Emily