Let me just start by saying that I don't miss school at all. However, I do miss my mentors who inspired me to always work harder and create better work along the way. Those mentors are Michelle Damato and Jim Estes. The further along in my career that I go, I do think about both of them and about how much they truly believed in me and promoted my work throughout my college years.   

​

I was that student who, eventually, looked at all her work, decided it was crap, and threw it out senior year (of all years). I built a new portfolio from scratch during the last six months of school! Michelle would meet me once a week, every week, at the French Rivera Cafe to review all of the work and give me the second opinion that I needed. It was one of the very best "career" moves I've made. I went on to win Best of Show during graduation with the new portfolio. Shortly after that, the rock and roll magazine and the Coca-Cola annual report won awards at Creative Summit, and a few months after that, they were published in Graphis, having won Gold Awards along with the Cycles Gladiator wine label. That level of attention eventually helped me land my first job at Hill Design working for Chris Hill. Chris Hill later became one of my professional mentors. If I were to give any tidbit of advice to students, it would be to really examine their portfolios and determine if they are showing something unique or just showing a book that looks like everyone else's, mimicking what one professor wants to see.