I confess in full that I only knew two things about Cooper Union when I applied: that it was free, and that it was hard to get into. I knew only slightly more when I was accepted: that the Engineering Building in the East Village looked like construction I’d made once from my grandmothers dusty...

I grew up in a working class neighborhood in Staten Island, with parents who never attended college (my mother for lack of money, my father for lack of interest), and I can still recall being told repeatedly that there would no money for that. I watched my sister work an exhausting waitressing schedule just to...

I arrived at the Cooper Union excited about art and somewhat politically engaged. When I left, I made the decision not to use politics in my art, but to use art in my politics. And since then, my education at Cooper has enabled me to work at some of the most effective and influential organizations...

When I was accepted to Cooper Union, a local newspaper wrote a story on me saying that I was following in the footsteps of my paternal grandfather, a civil engineer who was a follower of Gandhi. I never met my grandfather, who passed away long before I was born, and knew as much about him...

It was probably Day Gleeson’s voice. I wouldn’t have recognized it then because I was still in high school. I know that it was winter because it was dark outside yet not too late in the day. My mother and I were headed somewhere and she was already in the car. I was just about...