1. I think that I definitely related the most to Alex Roka, and not just because we share the same name. First of all, he was a graphic design student, like me, and he began to discover the different areas that he wanted to go into while he was in school: the illustration, and the graphic lettering. I definitely want to be able to narrow down my passions into that category that I am the most passionate about, and to pursue it in my career the way that he did. I really liked looking at the different designs that he made too.

2. The lady who came from Pump project…? She probably surprised me the most. She talked about doing all of these really cool things with all of these Austin artists, and she ended up where she was because of the hard work that she put into it. It wasn’t even paid at first, but she put so much time into it that at some point they began to pay her, and the obvious enthusiasm that she had for her work felt contagious. I guess she just surprised me with the idea that the longer you work at something, the more likely it is that you will be rewarded. No doubt she had a measure of talent to go with that, but the way she talked, she didn’t seem to rely on her talent too much, which also surprised me.

3. The most valuable piece of advice that I got from the alumni was probably that I should just try to learn as much as possible, because that’s what this time is for. I should try new projects by myself, even without a teacher telling me to do it in a project. I should also network while I can, and put my name into the world so that I’m not completely anonymous when I graduate.