“I feel very fulfilled at this time of my life. 我非常感激.”
When it came time to reinvent her life, Karina 泰勒 chose 冰球突破豪华版试玩 to help her do it.
泰勒 recently became a United States citizen after moving from her native Costa Rica five years ago, is enrolled in Great Bay’s Digital Media Communications associate degree program. Her goal is to write and illustrate children’s books in the United States, continuing a passion she began in Costa Rica when she published her first children’s book in 2016.
“Books are my passion, and I especially love children’s picture books,” she said. “I already have many stories, many ideas. But I want to be more prepared and learn more illustration techniques on the digital side, to combine it with the other techniques that I already know. I live in Portsmouth now and I heard people were talking very highly about Great Bay, so I decided to stop in to see the campus and learn about the program, 我就在这里.”
She expects to graduate in spring 2025. She is pleased with her decision to enroll at Great Bay and learn new skills that will help her advance her career. “我认为这是一所很棒的学校. The teachers are smart and helpful, they are so passionate about what they are teaching, 而且这些平台很容易使用.”
在大海湾, she is learning programs such as Illustrator, Photoshop, 和Adobe的InDesign, and absorbing as much information as she can so she has the tools necessary to complete all the books that she has begun writing and illustrating in her head. She is about to finish two bilingual books – one about a sweet sloth named Scott, who lives in the rainforest of Costa Rica and adventures to North America. The book will capture his humorous escapades along the way, including his first encounter with snow. 另一个标题是 多样性的爱 and is a book about friendship, teamwork, tolerance, and love. It also talks about immigration and differences.
泰勒 维护一个网站 致力于她的插图, is eager to continue her education at Great Bay so she can turn her full attention to continuing creating books. “The professors are so kind and patient, so responsible. 我很幸运，”她说. “They give us tools that are useful that we can use right away.”
In Costa Rica in 2009, 泰勒 founded, directed, and taught at a bilingual preschool. Through her work at the school, her passion for books for children grew ever more. She wrote and illustrated her first book, 剪纸他在哥斯达黎加教书. The book focuses on bilingual education through fine motor skills, art, and sensory work.
She studied to be an architect for almost three years after graduating from high school, but switched to education when she discovered her love of working with children. She received a degree in Special Education and worked at the Children’s Hospital and Rehabilitation School with hospitalized children, 有特殊需要人士, 脑瘫, 学习障碍. She earned a degree in English as a Second Language and taught at public and private schools before opening her own school.
In Portsmouth, she teaches preschool at the Seacoast Community School.
泰勒 left Costa Rica for the promise of a better life. “Costa Rica is a very beautiful country. Many people from around the world have visited my country and they really liked it. They love the beaches and nature, food, and people. They fall in love with the country,” she said. “But sometimes it’s very difficult there in certain fields, 因为它是一个非常小的国家, 经济也不是很好. Our education is excellent, but once you are graduated, some of the fields are saturated. There are a lot of professionals in different fields and not a lot of jobs.”
她首先搬到了伦敦, 然后去了美国, arriving in New Hampshire just before the pandemic. Her husband, whom she met while he was on vacation in Costa Rica, is from New Hampshire.
Because of the global health crisis, it took more than a year for 泰勒 to arrange for her daughters, 米娅和克劳迪娅, 现在15岁和20岁, 来美国和她团聚. 但他们最终还是做到了, and both are now enrolled in school – one is in college in Tennessee, who is studying to be a nurse and is part of the Honors Society, and the other is an honor roll student at Portsmouth High School.
It has been a whirlwind five years, and 泰勒 is relieved to feel settled and working toward a degree at Great Bay that she knows will make it possible for her to realize the life she has dreamed of living.
“我太高兴了. I feel very fulfilled at this time of my life. 我非常感激，”她说. “插画是我的激情所在. “I do it daily, and I feel like every character I draw is alive.”
