Cheuk C.

$1,000 Scholarships.com Design Scholarship Award Winner

During my early life in Hong Kong, I realized the powerful influence that architecture had on people’s lifestyles and cultures. While thinking back to the time when I lived with my parents and two elder brothers within a 350 square feet condo I used to live, I thought “home” was only a space where you sleep, eat, and take showers. However, it was a typical case where most low income or lower-middle class families are living in similar condos like us. This is how architecture affects everyday life and people’s mind. The space we live in is limiting our desires to explore additional possible goals. As an elementary student, I began to develop sketches and concepts of my desirable home. Eventually, I won multiple artistic competitions and got various money awards. Personally, that was the first time I felt a sense of accomplishment from my own artistic drawings, which elaborated more confidence and trust in myself later on.

After I immigrated to Oakland, my financial problems continued; but it had strongly developed my interests towards architecture. With a shortage of money in the family, we were living in an old house which was nearly 80 years old. In order to save more money, my father would have to make furniture and repair the interior and exterior of the house with his own hands. As a result, I learned to build man-made furniture like beds and chairs and was able to reconstruct and fix simple damages around the house with typical materials. Under my father’s guidance, I have a much greater opportunity to develop my designate creativity in my surroundings. I began to design everything around me, turning every typical object into part of my unique world.

Since I was born with artistic creativity and grew up under a construction specialist father, I feel absolutely passionate about my major: architecture. I began to develop more ideas for building a house, an office, a building, and eventually, my dream has no limitation for designing, which brings my inspirations and motivations to strive for the future.