Potential

It all started freshman year. When I was at freshman orientation for Nikola Tesla STEM High School, I was walking through one of the stairways. All the walls were a blank white, and it seemed so unwelcoming, cold, and unpleasant; my mind straight away thought, this is the perfect location for a mural.

With that idea in mind, I was going through freshman year, and one of my classes was Graphic Production. In the midst of all of my STEM focused classes, this class gave me the chance to recognize and see that art and STEM had the potential to be mixed, and create beautiful things.

Moving on to sophomore year, I started planning out how I can pitch my mural idea to the school, and who can be my potential mentor in the entirety of the process. Something that encouraged me, was when in my APES class, my teacher gave an assignment to create something that would help or change a community. I took this as an opportunity to pitch my mural project. It was the perfect run through, and motivated me to finish my first draft sketches of the potential mural.

At the end of sophomore year, I asked my graphic production teacher from freshman year, Karen Schaeffer, if she could assist me in the process, and help guide me through the entire thing. She has worked with murals before, so she was the perfect person to come to. She helped me stay on track with my sketch iterations, and helped arrange when I could pitch the project to the principal. She worked on setting a budget, and letting me know all of the materials that we would need to acquire for this project as well.

At the beginning of junior year, Ms. Schaeffer and I came together after summer break and continued working on the pitch details. We ended up pitching the idea around November of 2025. I presented a PowerPoint of the final sketches to the principal, as well as explaining the meaning behind the design, and why I think it's a positive addition to the school. Ms. Schaeffer explained what the budget would be, and what we would need to spend the necessary money on (paint, brushes, cleaning supplies etc.).

Thankfully, our wonderful principal, Ms. Karkainen, agreed to the mural and helped us by getting PTSA to grant the budget for the project. While waiting for PTSA's agreement, I refined the sketches, and acquired a VR Headset, Oculus Quest 2, that was donated by a parent of a student that also goes to Tesla STEM. I also got a team together, 25 people in total, from various different grades. Once we got the grant from the PTSA, Ms. Schaeffer and I visited Sherwin-Williams, to pick out the paint colors that matched the final sketches.

Starting the first of April, we began to degrease the walls and tape down the floors with paper, to have a clean canvas to start with, and to not get the school floors painted on during the process.

I started sketching the walls with the VR headset, and the team would paint what I would sketch. We coordinated shift hours through an Excel document that Ms. Schaeffer organized, and then I would make sure that the team would check in when they would work, and put in their hours.

We finished painting the first of May, so it took exactly one month to complete the process of actually painting the mural. The painting sessions would happen before school, sometimes during lunchtime, after school, and one weekend was dedicated to it as well.

I had to learn how to be not only a leader of a large team, but also learn to manage my time and communicate well to my mentor and the principal.

This project was not only the kickoff to the Room to Flourish Initiative, but it was also a personal project since this was happening at my home high school. This was also considered an internship for students that participated. Around 390 coordinated service hours collectively were provided in total during this opportunity for others and myself.