If there’s one thing in my life I still have to pinch myself to believe, it’s this:
Apple paid for my master’s in the Royal College of Art, London.
Not just a stipend. Not a partial fee cut.
The whole damn thing.
Twenty-eight thousand pounds!! Deuymm!!!
When the email landed in my inbox, I remember sitting in stunned silence. Everything around me blurred. It was the first time in years I truly believed that anything could happen. Any f**king thing.
I had written to them about my financial constraints, my social background, my dreams, my work. I explained. I didn’t have the answers. I just had urgency. And somehow, that was enough.
That scholarship didn’t just give me education.
It gave me time.
I went to every art exhibition I could find. Every music gig. I documented RCA obsessively. I explored London like someone finally allowed to breathe. I tried new technologies.
I printed endlessly.
I poured my energy into conversations about healing, therapy, identity, loneliness, and connection.
I researched mental health and human behavior using myself as the subject.
I used visual tools, experimental writing, soundscapes, and photos as methods of inquiry.
That’s what the scholarship gave me, the freedom to go deep.
If I had paid that money in tuition, I would’ve never had this freedom. I'd have been budgeting every decision. Instead, I spent my loan on living. On learning.
This year wasn’t perfect. But it was expansive.
