When I was in my last semester of college I woke up in a panic one morning. I was looking over my requisite credits to graduate and realized I was missing one credit! It still surprises me how quickly I came up with it, but I immediately drew up the perfect one credit course – “Editorial Fashion Photography” and in 3 hours I needed both my graphic design and photojournalism professors to sign off on it.
Convincing professors to approve my petition wasn’t going to be difficult. Half the courses I was taking that year were a result of petitioning professors to let me take their class. I was far along in my psychology and french degree when I realized I really could not give up chasing my love for becoming a creative designer someday–maybe at a magazine–I just wanted to tell and design stories. So, I presented a portfolio of images to the school’s head of photography to convince him to allow me to skip the requisites for his class. I can’t remember how I convinced the Marketing professor, but I was relentless. Then, the graphic design prof. You see, being type A worked to my advantage because by my third year of college, I had completed 98% of the required courses to graduate with a double degree in Psychology and French, that, well I could explore other “random” courses which is what inspired me to explore my other passions.
I had given up on my creative dream the day I put in my application to college. I ignored the letters from fashion school requiring my sketches for review. But somehow in my last year of college I was chasing it all over.
I outlined my syllabus and final exam for the new course I was creating, and by 12pm that day, I had both signatures from my professors and the approval of the registrar’s office! I decided the final exam would be to create my own magazine from start to finish including a fashion editorial spread, ads, and cover design. I would be examined on my use of the elements of graphic design and photography. I was super excited and couldn’t believed what I had pulled off in a matter of hours.
…By 5pm that same day, I realized I did the math wrong–I didn’t have insufficient course credits to complete college, in fact, I was over the number of credits needed!
I still completed the course and I’m very proud to have a fashion credit from a college that had no fashion department. I also don’t believe getting the math wrong on the number of credits I needed was a coincidence. I think that what our dreams and our passions do, they never let us go. Since then, I haven’t stopped creating fashion spreads –stories inspired by travel and fashion.
And well, you can say my small magazine in college evolved itself into this online magazine I now call Armenyl.com
