My name is Olivia Dubin. I am a Plastics Engineering student at Penn State Behrend. Over my short lifetime I have faced many challenging hardships as well as had some of the best times of my life. I’ve moved ten hours away from home without knowing a single soul at my destination. I have also made life long friends along the way. I through myself into a plastic technician job where I had not even the slightest clue as to what I was doing. Still, I wouldn’t trade any of these experiences for anything. I would like to say that I have learned a lot in my 20 years and I know that I still have a lifetime of learning. Sometimes when my friends are lost and are looking for guidance they ask me what I think and I don’t always have the answer but, I am always willing to listen. Now it’s time for me to answer some of these questions after 20 years of thought. My portfolio theme is all about me and the life lessons that I have picked up along the way. Although some might sound cheesy, I’ve come to find that the cheesiest lessons are the most universal and applicable. I tried to pair one of my life lessons to a representative picture. Maybe it’s just the engineer in me, but I think that visual learning is the most memorable and useful.

My success: Exploring new places to find things to photograph. I love to travel and explore and I am not shy to find the next new place or thing. I had a lot of help and support from my friends who followed my around and even offered up some of their favorite secret places! Most importantly I had a lot of fun while doing all of this.

Troubleshooting: Weather was my biggest competitor. It’s been a rainy summer unfortunately but there is no avoiding that I just had to work with it. I also had some trouble finding the right apps to help my achieve the vision I was picturing in some of these photographs. For instance I paid $1.99 for an app that could control shutter speeds and gave me grainy photos. Two weeks later I found out that my phone had an utility built into it that could do a slow shutter speed for me.

Current Rate: 4/5

Final Rate: 5/5