Alumni Blog

Earlier this month, Anthonny Ruiz, '23, walked across the stage at Climate Pledge Arena as a first-generation college graduate, having received a degree in Strategic Communications with honors. He made it look easy, but his journey to this moment was anything but smooth. Ruiz’s success at Seattle University is a testament to his perseverance, character and the power of education that changed the trajectory of his life.

Growing up in the Seattle area as one of three children in a single-parent household, Ruiz’s mother worked two to three jobs to support the family. Ruiz watched his brothers become involved with gangs and drugs, following them into that lifestyle as a he grew older. Despite being told he was “bright, smart and gifted,” Ruiz barely graduated high school with a 1.2 GPA.

“I remember coming home from school wondering if our lights would be on and many times they would not be,” he recalls. “We would have a difficult time knowing when and where our next meal was coming from. Although my mother did her very best, she struggled through most of my childhood.”

After graduating high school, Ruiz became an active gang member, following the footsteps of his brothers. His gang involvement caused him to be in and out of jail and ultimately sentenced to four years in prison. While incarcerated, Ruiz decided he was done with gangs and resolved to turn his life around by pursuing higher education.

“I ate food with inmates who had been in prison longer than I had been alive. I learned that was not the life I wanted,” Ruiz says. “I was released in November 2017, and I knew I wanted to go to school and make something of myself.”

After earning his associate degree from Shoreline Community College in 2021, Ruiz began applying to schools to earn a bachelor’s degree.  He was looking for an experience where he could connect to professors personally and feel at home. When applying to SU, Ruiz shared his story of a challenging childhood, gang life and eventual incarceration.

“The response I received from the school—open arms, all encompassing—made this decision for me an incredibly easy one,” Ruiz says. “I made the decision to attend SU because it felt like I was supposed to be here.”

And he was right.

SU opened doors for Ruiz to excel as a student and gain career experience, and he was provided the financial help necessary through scholarships made possible by generous donors. Without the constant worry of meeting basic needs like rent and groceries, Ruiz was able to become that bright and smart student his high school teachers knew he could be. Through this scholarship support, including the Benjamin N. Dijulio Family Scholarship, he was able to reduce his working hours and focus more on his studies. He was also able to acquire working experience in his goal career field of public relations.

In his two years at SU, Ruiz received National Honor Society recognition and made the President’s and Dean’s List multiple times. He also completed two internships at nonprofit organizations in Seattle involving marketing, public relations and communications and later worked as the Media Relations Intern at the Albers School of Business and Economics. Also valuable—the connections with professors and mentors who provided guidance.

After living in Seattle his whole life, Ruiz is planning to relocate to Dallas, Texas. With the tools gained from his SU education, he is applying to public relations firms with the goal to land a position where he can work with clients across different industries and ultimately work for an organization with an in-house public relations department.

Looking back, Ruiz says he is grateful to SU for believing in him and providing the financial support he needed to succeed.

“People make mistakes, but they can be rehabilitated if given adequate support,” says Ruiz. “By seeing my potential, the university is truly living its values—imagining what I can accomplish, not what I’ve done in the past.”

The first time Casey Horio, '23, stepped foot on the Seattle University campus was during Move-In Day as a declared electrical engineering major. A pandemic and two changes in major later, Horio graduated in June with a degree in digital design surrounded by fellow graduates all holding his work of art that depicted the Kubota Legacy Garden.

As a senior at Hawaii Baptist Academy High School in O’ahu, Hawai’i, Horio cast a wide net when applying to universities on the West Coast. SU ultimately grabbed his attention because of the merit scholarships he received that made the engineering program an affordable option.

During his freshman year, Horio realized he wasn’t enjoying his electrical engineering classes as much as he thought he would and decided to switch to computer science. That didn’t quite work out, either. Just when he thought the best decision might be to transfer to a school in Hawai’i to save money while figuring out what he wanted to do next, he discovered SU’s digital design program that allowed him to combine his creative hobbies with career interests in computer science.

“Digital design or graphic design was always something that I did as a hobby, but I didn’t consider making a career out of it,” Horio explains. “But then I saw that the digital design program would teach you graphic design and other design tools and you could form how and what you wanted to get out of the degree.”

Horio’s design experience began in high school with a class in Photoshop, but he had never taken a true art class. His first venture into art was in the fall quarter 2020 with the Design in Color class. Despite being entirely online due to the COVID-19 pandemic, he stayed engaged with the campus by acting as treasurer—now president—of the Japanese Student Association (JSA). The club’s meetings over Zoom became a needed social outlet for Horio while being mostly at home his sophomore year.

“Our club has both international students from Japan as well as people who are just interested in the culture, so I feel like it gives it a really unique dynamic where we can have cool connections between people who are interested and those who actually teach us a lot about the culture,” he says. “It gave me a little more cultural pride in terms of being Japanese. There’s a lot more diversity in Seattle than what I’m used to, so to be able to find a community that I can connect with was a positive part of my experience.”

When SU transitioned back to in-person classes in fall 2021, Horio experienced in-person art classes for the first time and fully embraced the experience. Since most of the design program’s courses are taught by the same professors, they were able to coach Horio’s development as a designer and offer customized guidance as he continued to improve in his skills.

Soon, Horio found a real-world format for implementing the techniques he was learning. He worked on merchandise and marketing pieces for the JSA cultural show and served as the graphic designer for the Student Events and Activities Council. Horio’s varied experience culminated with a recent design exhibition alongside his fellow cohorts.

“It was great putting together all our work and then putting it out there for people to see,” he says.

Post-graduation, Horio hopes to land a position working in web and UX/UI design but plans to continue doing graphic design on the side to stay connected with the design community.

“The design program allowed me to explore the different areas of digital design. It was helpful to have a lot of speakers come in and talk about their experience and how they found their careers,” says Horio. “Seattle U has prepared me in terms of realizing how much of a creative community there is.”

This is the second year the Seattle University Alumni Association has commissioned a graduating student to create an artistic piece to be handed to graduates as they walk across the stage at commencement. When Horio was asked to create the artwork for this year’s commencement, he wanted to create something that everyone could connect with, but also art that reflected his Japanese identity and his experience at SU including with the JSA. Ultimately, Horio chose to create a piece depicting the Kubota Legacy Garden because of the connection to Japanese culture and its central location on campus. Many people walk through the garden on the way to class, passing the Sinegal Center for Science and Innovation. Horio took pictures of the garden from many angles and redrew them in Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop to give a more hand-painted appearance. He then went through the same process with the Chapel of St. Ignatius, adding it to the background as a recognizable pillar of campus.

“Hopefully people will see this and be reminded of positive memories from their time here,” Horio says.  “It encapsulates Seattle U as being this Jesuit campus but also being able to embrace different cultures and ideas.”

Check out Casey's artwork here.