Rishae Rucker  ’22 (MFA1)

Less Pressure to Pay Off Loans Meant this Dynamic Designer Could Focus 

Thanks to funding from the New York Design Center, NYSID was able to award Rishae Rucker, a dynamic and talented designer, with the Corey Damen Jenkins Scholarship. Rishae is an MFA1 student who applied to NYSID while working as a college admissions counselor. She says, “I saw other students pursuing their dreams and I realized I needed to make my own happen.” She was president of the NYSID Green Design Group; she spoke on the student panel at NYSID’s Teaching Green Symposium in sustainable design education; and she represented NYSID in the Kaleidoscope Project showhouse by BIPOC designers. She said, “In my last year and with my looming graduation date, I was starting to worry about how I would be able to pay for my degree. . .my loans. This scholarship meant that I coul focus on finishing my studies and on launching my career,” says Rucker. “Also, it made me feel that NYSID cares about students of color and people from diverse communities, specifically about helping them complete their studies.”