How Apple Funded My Dream at RCA
In August 2022, my life changed completely. I got an acceptance letter from the Royal College of Art, London, and a few weeks later, a full scholarship from Apple. What started off as a thing on my wishlist was finally coming true!
I didn’t just study thanks to that scholarship, I lived.
I walked into galleries, music gigs, therapy sessions, and deep dives into autoethnography.
I photographed everything. I asked questions about love, grief, relationships, and healing. I made art. I found space.
That one year gave me freedom, not just from fees, but from fear.
If there’s one thing in my life I still have to pinch myself to believe, it’s this: Apple paid for my master’s at the Royal College of Art, London.
Not just a stipend. Not a partial fee cut. The whole damn thing. Twenty-eight thousand pounds!! Deuymm!!!
When the email landed in my inbox, I remember sitting in stunned silence. Everything around me blurred. It was the first time in years I truly believed that anything could happen. Any f**king thing. I had written to them about my financial constraints, my social background, my dreams, and my work. I explained. I didn’t have the answers. I just had urgency. And somehow, that was enough.
That scholarship didn’t just give me an education. It gave me time.
I went to every art exhibition I could find. Every music gig. I documented RCA obsessively. I explored London as if someone had finally allowed me to breathe. I tried new technologies. I printed endlessly. I poured my energy into conversations about healing, therapy, identity, loneliness, and connection.I researched mental health and human behaviour using myself as the subject. I used visual tools, experimental writing, soundscapes, and photos as methods of inquiry. That’s what the scholarship gave me, the freedom to go deep. If I had paid that money in tuition, I would’ve never had this freedom. I'd have been budgeting every decision. Instead, I spent my loan on living. On learning. This year wasn’t perfect. But it was expansive.
Learnings
It showed me what’s possible when institutions care. When someone believes in you enough to say, “We’ll take care of it. Go make art.”
When someone funds you, honour that by being free. Be bold. Be emotional. Be complex. Do the thing only you can do.
Believe in late yeses. Deadlines feel like dead ends, until you write that one more email. I got my scholarship one month before class began. One email changed everything. Always ask. The worst is silence. The best? A miracle.
