“I Am First, I Am An Artist” is a program at Cal State Fullerton designed to prepare first-generation arts students for a career in the arts by teaching professional networking and communication skills, confidence building and other tools for success.
Launched in spring 2020, the six-week program was founded by Stephanie Reyes, senior associate director of the CSUF Career Center.
Art student Skylar Williams, 21, who is studying animation, has taken full advantage of the program. Now a junior, Williams wants to become a professional animator and specifically sought out CSUF because of the animation classes it offers.
“It was my dream to be down here in Orange County and go to Cal State Fullerton and major in animation,” said Williams, who comes from Hayward, near San Francisco.
She is the first in her family to attend college. When she expressed her desire to attend a four-year university, her family initially resisted the idea due to the potential debt associated with tuition fees. But after Williams learned about Cal State Fullerton’s animation classes at a young age, she was determined to find a way to attend. By working, obtaining scholarships, and with some help from her family, Williams has accrued no college debt, while remaining focused on her academics and interests.
“I want to be a storyboard artist,” Williams said, explaining that a storyboard artist takes the script created by a writer and director and turns it into a comic book form called an animatic. This is a series of panels organized in the sequence of a story that serves as a guide for producing the final animation.
Williams was inspired by the work of American animator Rebecca Sugar, who created the show “Steven Universe,” and she dreams of one day becoming the first African American woman to create her own show for Cartoon Network.
Furthermore, Williams wants to create shows featuring people of color — and she feels this is a real possibility, unlike previous decades when “there weren’t people who looked like me in cartoons,” she said.
Getting ahead in any creative field takes work, and Williams participated in the “I Am First, I Am An Artist” program last summer to expand on skills she’d learned in high school business classes. “The program teaches you how to make a resume, how to introduce yourself, how to make elevator pitches and basic business knowledge, but for artists,” she said.
First-generation students may have limited access to professional networks in the arts, Reyes said. “This program teaches them how to connect with industry professionals and alumni, helping them establish relationships that can open doors to internships, mentorships and job opportunities.”
Students are also taught how to initiate career conversations, network with peers and professionals, and explore a variety of career paths in the arts — “skills that are often not taught in traditional coursework,” Reyes added.
Williams has a resume, and on it she lists her current part-time job working at Disneyland as a captain on a Storybook Land Canal boat. This job enables her to be part of the Disney Aspire scholarship program, which, in partnership with Cal State Fullerton, covers some tuition fees for Orange County employees. Last year, Williams took one semester off for an internship working in the costume department at Disney World in Florida.
She has also worked as a Titan Ambassador, giving campus tours, and she’s currently vice president of the Women In Animation collective on the CSUF campus, a role in which she relies on networking to invite professionals to share their experience with students.
Feeling confident to reach out to professionals is key to building connections that can lead to job opportunities, post-college and throughout life. “Students develop skills in using LinkedIn to identify alumni with arts degrees and explore their profiles to learn about diverse career paths,” Reyes said. “They are then encouraged to reach out and connect with these alumni to initiate career conversations.”
Such conversations are also facilitated by connecting students with alumni mentors in relevant careers. The “I Am First” program also organizes alumni panels and career expos so first-generation students can begin their journey to a successful career with knowledge, skills and confidence.