How Apple Funded My Dream at RCA

In August 2022, a single email changed the trajectory of my life. I had been accepted into the Royal College of Art in London but was struggling to figure out how I would pay for it. Then Apple stepped in, with a full scholarship. It covered every penny of my £28,000 tuition. The timing? Just a few weeks before term started. That close. It was wild!!!

I didn’t just study thanks to that scholarship, I lived. I walked into galleries, music gigs, therapy conversations, deep dives into auto-ethnography and emotional research.

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 in 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, 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 education. It gave me time. I went to every art exhibition I could find. Every music gig. I documented RCA obsessively. I explored London like someone finally allowed 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.