Bezawit O’Neill

What was your weekly class like?
We have speakers, mostly Black designers, who come in and talk about their experience as Black designers in their fields. It’s all about opening up the culture of design to students. I have two mentors and have the same mentors every week.

What was your relationship with your mentors like?
Starting this, I was kind of scared because they were college students, and some of them had already left college. But they’re so nice, and it’s so comfortable with them. They are there so you can feed off of their knowledge and learn from them. They really want to help and they really want to mentor students so that students can have an opportunity to take design. It’s a lot less stressful than I thought it was going to be.

Is design something you would be interested in pursuing?
I didn’t really think of it as a career before going into this. Once I started doing this, and once I started to see the different fields and the different ways you can incorporate it as a career, I thought this could be something I could do. My experience shows that when you’re in high school, you might as well try everything to see what you like, because now, after I’ve done it, I’ve realized that I really love design.