Author: Shawna Takaki

Ana White is a third-year student majoring in Pastry Arts. White's decision in making Pastry Arts her major resulted from an experience that she had while on a trip to Chicago three years ago. While spending the Thanksgiving weekend with a few friends in Chicago, she decided to go Black Friday shopping with them primarily to buy desserts for her family. White impulsively bought chocolate covered almonds during her shopping spree but was unsure who she would give it to later on. Eventually, White and her friends stumbled upon a homeless man after they left the dessert shop. Feeling terrible for not having any money to give, White then remembered the chocolate covered almonds that she had bought, handing it to the homeless man as a gift. While her friends gave him money, he asked them to pass on his gratitude to White and that chocolate covered almonds were her favorite. "That just made me, like, want to work with pastries because I was actually considering either going into culinary or something as I saw as more practical, so I almost didn't come here for pastry arts," White said. "After that [experience], that solidified my decision and I'm going to graduate [in Fall 2018]."