Meet Map: Zo, Graduate

Here is a transcript of our conversation with Zo, a Map graduate.

Zo: Hi, my name’s Zo. I’m 18 and I’m finishing up at Map Academy. Academically, I’m finished, but I still have post-secondary to do here. Essentially, it’s figuring out what you’re going to do after high school – college, careers, stuff like that. Just super flexible. You can just work on whatever, as long as it’s stuff you’re supposed to be working on. I did all my academics, now I can figure out all the fun stuff without having to worry about like, “Oh, you still have math,” or whatever.

I’ll admit, more or less it’s actually my social anxiety I still have to work on, because [Map] may be a high school, but it’s not just academics. It’s working on post-secondary, working on you as a person, getting through boundaries and whatnot. I have really bad social anxiety and I still have to work on that. I knew going to college, right away, I would probably not do well.

It’s like, if you met me back when I was at my old school, I would literally not even be here right now. I would’ve just been like, “Nope, I’m not doing this interview. Goodbye,” but now I’m here and I’m doing this and a lot of the people in general are just so supportive. They helped me get through stuff like that. Even if it’s just baby steps, the goal is obviously figuring out what college and whatnot to go to, what I want to do in college, but also just, for example, I don’t have my license yet. I’m figuring out getting that and be more independent and whatnot. Social anxiety just kept me back.

I definitely want to do something with storytelling, but I don’t know the specific steps. I can draw, I can write, but I’m not sure if I want to do one or the other or comics or just something I just know within storytelling. It’s still not 100% sure what I’m set on. Just definitely something in the
creative realm.