On the morning of October 29th, 2025, Seniors Ruele and Ella were pulled aside from Painting club to be asked of their experiences of senior year. They give us insight on the perspectives of what their past four years have been like and what they are planning for their futures.

As their final year of high school has begun, Ruele and Ella tell us about their journey so far. While senior year is often romanticized in the media, during this time of the year many seniors are scrambling to put together their five year plan and apply to colleges. There is an even bigger question for Art and Design students: if they are choosing to continue art into their career or leave it as a hobby. Ruele and Ella help break down what they’ve experienced so far this year and clarify the challenges awaiting them. 

Ruele is an Illustration Major that was asked about his goals for the future, and especially if those goals involve art. 

“I definitely want to do traditional art and painting or sculpture, but I don’t necessarily want to do what colleges call “illustration”, which is like zines and graphic novels because I think that’s less interesting to me than more traditional forms of art, like painting, just like large paintings or like figure drawing.” 

As Art and Design students further their artistic education, it also means having to be focused on what you specifically want to do. The definition of art and illustration degrees vary from place to place. A large shift for those graduating is finding a degree or realm of art they want to specialize in and having to find it independently. As scary as that can be, it can also be freeing and allow new graduates to hone skills they couldn’t focus on while here.

However with talks of art, there of course is the conversation of AI. As its popularity grows for many businesses, students are now learning how to navigate with or around it for their careers. When asked about the topic, Ella gives us her opinion on what this means for her future.

“With AI it’s a lot more cutthroat like you have to put your stuff out there and hope that it makes it in a sea of generated images and also just for social media in general. It’s really about getting your art out there and I think there’s a lot more competition now, but also I think that it’s much more accessible to put your art out there with all the different platforms artists can use.”

Despite the most recent push of AI, Ella remains hopeful and focuses on the positives with fast-paced algorithms that social media runs on. While many artists have the threat of competing with technology, the accessibility of social media allows people from multiple different places to see your art. 

While the seniors may be wrapping up their high school career, they can still look fondly upon their past years. 

“It’s shown me the good and bad sides of working in the art field, but I just think it’s right for me. Getting to work with other people to create pieces for life; commercial aspects or for small projects, it’s a really great experience.”