Zullay Orozco

I’m Zullay and I’m 18 years old. I graduated from Von Steuben High School on the north side of Chicago. I was part of French club, GSA club, Jabba club, and I also played soccer for two years. At Columbia I am majoring in Photography. I have never taken any photography classes but I am very passionate about it. I first knew I wanted to study photography when my mother bought me a camera my freshman year of high school. It was all so new to me so I began exploring the different things I could do with my camera. I took so many pictures and loved the way my pictures came out, that’s when I realized I wanted to become a photographer. I am also thinking of minoring in contemporary dance. I’ve been dancing since I was 8 years old. The funny thing about it is that when my mom put me in my very first ballet classes, I was not very thrilled. My first day, I cried. I hated the fact that I had to go every Saturday for an hour and a half in a tutu and ballet slippers. My mom told me the first day, that I would end up loving it. And of course, she was right. Ever since then, I’ve been dancing my feet away. I’ve wanted to come to Columbia since I was a freshman in high school. I first learned of Columbia at a college fair and I fell in love. The representative that was there gave me so much information and was very nice. Once she told me that I could do both photography and dance it felt like the school of my dreams. I always watched those kind of corny dance movies where the main character went to an artistic school where you saw dancers dancing in the hallways and a choir singing on their way to class.