This past summer I spent a week in French immersion at Alliance Française de Montréal. Conversations there shift fluidly between French and English, and old stone architecture stands beside modern glass storefronts. That layered identity gave me a new visual vocabulary to draw from. Between lessons, I sketched in cafés, paying close attention to how people moved and carried themselves in a city where two languages and cultures constantly overlap.

This past summer I traveled to Athens as part of a CCS Art History course. Walking through millennia of layered history, from ancient ruins to Byzantine churches to the modern city built up around them, gave me a firsthand sense of how visual traditions evolve and persist over time. I filled pages of my sketchbook with studies of architectural detail, drapery, and the interplay of light and shadow found in classical sculpture, all of which continue to inform how I approach form and composition in my own character work.

I spent six weeks in Medellín completing a Spanish language immersion alongside a graphic design internship at Jaime Uribe & Asociados. Medellín’s color, texture, and rhythm worked their way into my sketchbook too, and the experience deepened both my conversational Spanish and my eye for how culture and commerce shape visual language differently across countries.

I traveled through Peru in 2025 as part of a CCS Art History course, taking in landscapes and cultural traditions that ranged from coastal cities to Andean highlands. A hands-on Peruvian ceviche cooking class became one of the highlights, giving me a firsthand appreciation for the freshness and ritual behind the country’s coastal cuisine. Between stops, I sketched the color and pattern found in local textiles and markets, drawing connections between craft traditions and the kind of visual storytelling I hope to bring to my own character work.

I traveled to Germany and the Netherlands for my high school senior trip, challenging myself to get around almost entirely by bus and train, with just one short flight along the way to save time. Between stops, I visited many museums and enjoyed sampling the local food in both countries.

I traveled to Spain with my high school Spanish class, and that trip was where my love of the language truly began. Beyond the classroom, I got to experience Spanish culture firsthand, the architecture, the food, the rhythm of daily life, which gave new meaning to the language I’d only known from a textbook. That trip planted the seed for the Spanish studies I’ve continued ever since.

I spent my early childhood living in Singapore, attending primary school there and traveling throughout the region to places like Thailand, China, Indonesia, and Australia. Those years gave me my first lens for seeing the world, exposing me to color, pattern, and ways of life very different from what I’d later grow up with in the US. Experiences like visiting the Singapore Zoo, exploring Beijing and Shanghai, and taking part in Girl Scouts International left lasting impressions that still surface in how I think about setting, culture, and character today.