Patience Is a Virtue
My name is Aimee Perez and I am a second semester student at California State University of Northridge. I am 26 years old and have only three semesters left at the journalism program of CSUN. I grew up here in Northridge and have lived here ever since. Growing up I taught myself a vast knowledge of high fashion and every detail about fashion in general. I picked up magazine after magazine and googled everything I could to grasp it all. Becoming a fashion writer and or editor is my end goal at the end of my educational path. There is a part of me that also has an attachment to the art world because as I grew up, I painted and drew almost every single day. My dad would tell everyone I was an artist and I would go places. Growing up I became insecure about my art and only now have the ability to paint when I am in a mood to do so, if not, I feel as if my work is forced will not cooperate with my brain and I will hate the outcome. I do enjoy painting with watercolors and I love to go to museums as often as I can to enjoy exhibitions from my favorite artists. As a child I always knew I wanted to be a fashion designer or a writer, but I also was a realist and stuck with writing. For a couple of years in between 2016–2018 I interned for free at a fashion and music magazine online known as Foxes Magazine. I would curate Twitter posts, Instagram posts, and even help them find models for their photoshoots. After two years of that I became bored of free labor and decided to focus on school. Not until college did I start taking my first writing classes. I attended Pierce College from 2012–2020, which sounds shocking and like an unreasonable amount of time. I took two years off during that time to reflect on what I wanted to do with my life, and try to understand if college was actually for me. I constantly told myself over and over that “Patience is a virtue,” and that it didn’t matter how much time it took but that I was actually trying my best. As I spoke to a counselor in late 2018, she guided me in getting courses in the journalism department to make my transfer smooth and quick. When I took the required courses for journalism at Pierce, I never felt included or comfortable. The staff around me very cliquey and I was the new student all over again. I was part of a small staff or journalists that ran a magazine and worked on several deadlines. At the end of the Spring 2019 semester, I published my first official article for them and even then, the small victory did not feel like a victory. Transferring to CSUN was the best thing that could have happened to me in my educational journey. The first semester at CSUN was more fulfilling than any of the 8 on and off years spent at Pierce.
