The Artist With a Math Brain by Julia
Julia's entry into Varsity Tutor's February 2024 scholarship contest
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The Artist With a Math Brain by Julia - February 2024 Scholarship Essay
All my life, I knew I wanted to create. Whether that meant I was going to be a fashion designer (shout out to 5th grade me), or a movie director, I had to have a career where my ideas came to life. But there was one problem: I had a hard time expressing my creativity. When I tried sketching, I was never able to get what was in my head out onto the paper. Same thing with painting. I didn’t think in artistic concepts and theories, but rather in concrete formulas and equations. It’s like my brain was trying to set me up for failure.
This dilemma almost sent me into a spiral. I was only in 6th grade, yet I was already worrying about eighteen-year-old me. How could I sustain my career in design when I couldn’t even get the design out of my head? Images of sitting on the street, begging for money, corrupted my imagination. I would end up like that if I could never get my ideas out.
Terrified by that thought, I decided that I had to go into a field that I was good at: math. Even though I wouldn’t be able to create, at least I would have a stable income. But the more I thought about it, the more horrifying it became. I now realize that the field of mathematics is very diverse, but 6th grade me didn’t. I could only picture an accountant sitting in a cubicle for the rest of their life. To me, that sounded like a punishment worse than homelessness.
So, what was I going to do? I couldn’t give up a career I was passionate about for a more stable income, but I was also scared to death that I was never going to make any money. The decision seemed impossible.
That’s when I came across architecture. It was like a bone for a dog. Gas for a car. It was exactly, what I needed. Being the perfect balance between art and math, I could use architecture to express my creativity through formulas and equations. I was finally able to express my inner artist, as beautiful buildings could be created using the language of numbers. It was the perfect career for me!
