Dakota Pekar, a freshman at UPA, is in her first year of journalism. She decided to take journalism so she can inform people about issues she cares about. Pekar values solutions over complaining, which has stemmed from the best advice she has received: take initiative. Pekar “takes initiative” by doing the activities she loves: painting and deadlifting. Pekar paints with watercolors frequently but often experiments with other mediums such as acrylic and colored pencils. After school, Pekar usually goes to the gym, a habit she picked up from her dad in seventh grade. Since then, Pekar has reached a maximum weight of 195 pounds. In the next ten years, Pekar sees herself studying psychology in college. She believes that mental health is an important issue that needs to be destigmatized and believes becoming a psychologist the way she can help best. Her passion for helping others extends to her family and friends as well. The most important things to Pekar are her family, friends, ideals and her pets. She has four dogs named Bayne, Bell Bell, Tommy and Grady as well as three cats named Hurricane, Oli and Missy. If Pekar had a whole day to do whatever she wanted, she would watch anime, paint, play video games and spend time with her pets and family. Pekar is excited to bring more attention to feminists through her writing and hopes to also bring more attention to victims.