Alumni Profile – Kelsey C. Roy
Kelsey Roy graduated in 2011 having completed a College Scholars program in “Children’s Book Narrative and Illustration.” Her senior project resulted in the children’s book Nemanee. She is currently working as a writer and illustrator and maintains a blog called Kelsey C. Roy Illustrations (http://kelcroyillustrations.blogspot.com)
I contacted Kelsey to ask for information for this newsletter and some reflections on her experience as a college scholar. Her comments are worth reprinting in full because they epitomize the College Scholars program.
I was always an unconventional student. I attended 3 different universities for my undergrad and studied everything from art to exercise science. On the side I was involved with competitive ballroom dance, choir, set painting, kayaking, caricaturing and writing/illustrating an original comic strip for the student paper. In short, I am someone with many passions, and they all seemed to point in different directions. This led me to be rather niche-less in the beginning of my collegiate career. I couldn’t find a major that “fit” me. There are so many times that I feel like students get stuck trying to “fit” a major. I refused to do that. Then, someone suggested College Scholars to me. And thus I found my solution.
Suddenly, (well not suddenly, the application took forever) I found myself surrounded by other people living niche-less college existences. It was a niche for the niche-less. In fact, we dubbed College Scholars the “Major of Requirement” in reference to Harry Potter’s “Room of Requirement”; it only appears when you need it. Meaning, those who need College Scholars find it. The program allowed me to finally put all of my vast number of interests and passions into one, coherent, exciting direction: Children’s Book Narrative and Illustration. Without CS, I would never have been able to graduate in four years. I would still be in school now instead of pitching my book to literary agents and signing contracts with publishers. College Scholars allowed me to get the education I needed and wanted as well as allowing me the opportunity to gain experience in the field I have chosen. Without this program and the help of faculty members who graciously made themselves, their knowledge and their resources available to me, I wouldn’t have published my first book before graduating college (before I was 23). In turn, publishing this book has allowed me the opportunity to speak both at local and out of state schools about my work and how UT’s College Scholars Program helped me get to where I am now, an author/illustrator. I am continuing to learn more and more about the children’s literature market and how the publishing world works, but I am miles ahead of so many others out there thanks to CS. I am currently illustrating my third book, The Banana Police, written by author Katy Koontz, to be published this November.
And as a final comment, it is important to me to say that I couldn’t have gotten to where I am without the support of my fellow scholars. I have much to owe to my mentor, Marcia Goldenstein, and the rest of my defense committee for all they have given me, but it is the scholars themselves who really made the program what it was for me. They inspired me, they teased me (after all, all I had to do was ‘draw pictures all day’), and they treated me as their over-scheduled, over-stressed, and over-achieving equal. No matter where my career may take me, reading my book aloud to them will always be one of my absolute favorite and most dear memories. I miss them.