Since I was little, I've been interested in art. Other kids played with Barbie dolls; I played with markers. My mom paints watercolors, one of her sisters is an abstract artist, and their mother made stained glass, so I guess it runs in the family.

In high school, I had a graphic design teacher, and she pushed me in that direction as a career. After I got to Miami, I decided to add marketing as a minor because the job market for graphic designers is tough, and I want to be able to offer potential employers something more.

What I love about graphic design is that I can get completely caught up in it. I will stay up until all hours of the night working on a project. It's the one thing I can do and have no idea what time it is.

My favorite graphic design professor is Tom Effler. He's easy to talk to, and he has such worldly experience. He really pushes that design is something that needs to be done by hand first—that that is the heart of design.

My favorite marketing professor is Jillian Oakenfull. She's been incredibly supportive in helping me figure out a career path. Through her and other marketing instructors, I've become interested in branding. I like the logic behind it, thinking about why the consumer would want to buy a particular product.

I met Dr. Oakenfull when I signed up for Highwire London 2009, a six-week summer course. During Highwire, you get to work on a real advertising campaign. Our client was Microban, and we worked on a campaign for their European market. They make anti-fungal, anti-microbial products. I was the design director for my team. At the end of the six weeks, you do a presentation for the client. Some pretty high executives at Microban came to ours. My team ended up winning. The company is going to use our ideas in a real campaign, which is pretty cool.