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First-year student Erica Kraus took an unusual route to CIA: high school pre-engineering and robotics programs.

“I was always kind of different in the engineering program,” she recalled about her experience at Firestone High School in Akron, Ohio. “I’d make other students point out things as I drew them; that was how we made progress in the designs.”

After some deep thinking, she decided to apply to art schools and chose CIA, where she thinks she will major in an applied art, probably either Industrial Design or Biomedical Art. “I want my art to mean something… I want my art to be functional. I like working with my hands, but I also like working on a computer, so I want to find a good balance,” Kraus said.

She’s keeping one foot in the creative engineering world, however. Upon entering CIA, Kraus was hired to work at Case Western Reserve University’s think[box], a high-tech maker space that is available to students from both CWRU and CIA.