J- is working on her application for Western Tech’s CyberArts specialized high school program. She’s been organizing her portfolio and revising her application answers. It’s fun watching her application take shape. We help out from time to time with editing tips. At the end of the day, though, it has to be her words, her passion, and and her commitment.

In the beginning, she seemed frustrated. It can be difficult to explain why you want to learn something or what qualities you bring to a program. The first draft took a while. Then she filled it in with more detail, becoming more specific about her reasons. As she put her application together, you could almost see her becoming more and more confident. We helped her remember some of her other accomplishments, and she worked those into her application. She put her portfolio items together, and it was easy to see how far she’d come.

W- has been stellar. He’s been helping her sort through the sometimes intimidating array of requirements and possibilities. My contributions: In addition to the occasional nudge to replace commas with periods and to tweak wording slightly, I also enjoy reading her answers out to her. IA voice-over of sorts, so that she can hear it with confidence. “It sounds so good,” she says, and she knows it’s her words.

We remind her that it’s perfectly okay to not go for this program, and that it may involve a lot of work down the line. That said – drawing, photography, modeling, animation… It fits her interests well.

I think she’s close to the finishing line, past the humps of “Am I good enough for this?” and “Is this the right fit for me?” It will be interesting to see what happens next.