My name is Lola Garsonnin, and I was born in Kamloops in 2004. My family and I moved around when I was young from Paul Lake to Yellowknife, to a small ski town called Kimberley where we eventually settled down. I spent my childhood enrolled in numerous art camps and classes and I began to develop a great love for all things art, so much that I decided when I was quite young I would love to be a graphic designer. 

Living in a cramped environment of 8000 people for most of my life, I craved the opportunities and culture that larger cities held. I believe that if I am to succeed personally and professionally I would have to escape my comfortability and experience new ways of life to become the best version of me. I researched art programs related to graphic design all over Canada, primarily looking at larger cities. I actually had never heard of Capilano University before my art teacher recommended it to me when I mentioned what I wanted to study. She told me about the smaller class sizes, great student community and the career opportunities Capilano, mainly the IDEA program would offer.

At Capilano University I’m very excited to learn the ways of design and illustration from my professors who all have first-hand experience in their respective fields. Already in my first few weeks it’s become very clear that the information taught to me in the next four years will be beneficial to me for the rest of my life. Not only just in terms of learning new skills but for gaining connections, first hand design experience and the types of careers that will become available to me after school. In a broad sense, I’m hoping to learn how to manoeuvre myself professionally through the landscape of design. I don’t have many personal connections to the art world so if it weren’t for my current and future professors, I would be completely lost. Scaling it down to just University Writing Strategies, I’m simply hoping to learn how to communicate in a more concise way. Sometimes I find that I struggle with aspects of writing like grammar and jargon and learning from a higher educated english teacher I hope to solve these issues for myself. English has always been one of my favourite subjects all through middle school and high school, and I’m excited to see what more a university course offers. 

As of today, I’m not too sure of where I’m going to end up at the end of my time here at Capilano. I know I want to stay creative in my future career and if that ends up being something like a UX or UI designer, or more of an illustration geared career, I’ll be very happy. I have friends from back home who work as designers and I love the sound of work that they do. I think the ratio between creativity and business that graphic design holds really suits my personality and work ethic. As of today, the beginning of my time at Capilano University and my adult life, I am very excited for my future and everything that it holds.