Madhav Ramaprasad (11) practices saxophone for at least two hours a day. He said that practicing music helps him prioritize and manage his time.
“[Although] not every day is gonna be a good day, approach everything with the same amount of effort,” Ramaprasad said. “[Music] taught me to have a growth mindset and always be ready to take on challenges. I have to work on what I’m struggling with most first [in music], the same thing holds for schoolwork so I do my homework that I’m struggling with the most first.”
Students around Westview have been positively impacted by fine arts in other aspects of their lives.AP Studio Art student Lyla Jeon (11), who designed this year’s ASB Homecoming poster, said taking commissions for the Westview Theatre Company and ASB provided her with valuable interpersonal skills.
“I was really uncomfortable [as] it was my first time crafting my art for someone else, but I did learn,” she said “When doing commission work for people, I had to constantly connect with them and see what they want from me. For ASB, I got my work checked by multiple people, and the idea of getting approval from all of them scared me at first. My first draft got denied as it wasn’t what they were looking for and I remember being really panicked and anxious. However, I learned better time management and communication skills from this experience and I’m so grateful for it.”
Due to critique being commonplace in art, Jeon said she was able to improve the way she handled criticism.
“I get really anxious if I don’t have a clear understanding of something, but in art you really don’t know what’s gonna happen,” Jeon said. “Now I’m more keen to change—I’m able to handle [criticism] more. I’ve had times when my teacher made me redraw the same pose eight times. It was really frustrating, but it helped me improve my drawing a lot. It’s hard to not take [critique] personally after you put so much effort into it, but criticism is something I’ve learned to appreciate.”
Art has also helped AP Studio Art student Alina Doble (11) manage perfectionism in other parts of her life.

“I’m nitpicky on the little details in my works, but art has made me challenge that,” Doble said. “If something doesn’t turn out quite exactly right, I’ve learned that it doesn’t have to be 100% perfect and if I can just progress in making a project, then that’s better than having it incomplete.”
On the other hand, Prop designer and scriptwriter Alara McPhee (11) runs the Creative Writing and Performance club and the Philosophy Club. She said that theater provided her the skills and courage to start them.
“I used to be super nervous about taking charge and leading people,” McPhee said. “But after spending so much time working with other people [in theater], I feel comfortable enough to take on the positions of running clubs.”
Art has impacted students in other ways. Rapamapad says he uses music as a chance to express himself and connect with others.
“I rehearse almost every day with people and that helps me form bonds and connections [through] shared love for music,” Ramaprasad said.

For Ramaprasad, playing music also helped him enjoy more forms of art.
“Music has taught [me to] appreciate other types of art because I [see] the hard work that goes into it, instead of taking it for granted,” Ramaprasad said. “If I listen to other types of music, I think about what the musician was feeling at the time or why the artist wanted to do that.”
Similarly, Jeon said that having a knowledge of fine arts helped her in her thesis paper on Coraline, where she was able to understand the director’s purpose in his techniques.
“I had to analyze Coraline and the director’s techniques, [like the] technical artistic aspects of the movie,” Jeon said. “Since I already have a background in art, it’s easier to use that knowledge to analyze.”
McPhee said she believes that fine arts can be an essential part of education and students’ future success.
“Leaders need creativity to work around problems,” she said. “And students need areas to learn creativity, be able to utilize it, and create things they’re really proud of.”