I did a four year course and in my third year, we had to do a placement year and go and find work. I was the only Black girl in my course, and I'd send around my portfolio and application to 200 different design studios. I didn't hear back from any of them. I think it was my mom who said, “Why don't you try moving your picture to the top right hand side?” When I moved the picture was when I actually started receiving responses, and people were actually getting back to me. And that's when I realized in order to make this work, I have to anonymize myself. So I started calling people up. I guess with a name like Nicole Crentsil, which is not hard to pronounce, that was a sort of privilege for me to be able to call up different design studios, speak best Queen's English, and sway my way into scoring an internship at this place where they've never seen me before. That's exactly how I got my internships. At that time, I didn't really deep it too heavily in terms of what was happening. But looking back, that was probably the first time I was subjected to that level of microaggression.TV "And if I hadn’t seen her on TV, I would have thought, ‘I could never be on TV. They don’t let LGBTQ people be on TV,'" she continued. "And more than that, I would have gone on thinking that I was an alien and that I maybe even didn’t have a right to be here. So thank you, Ellen, for giving me a shot at a good life.”Tom Hanks's Teary Acting Master Class This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.Related:TheSkate KitchenAll-Girl Crew Knows Their Visibility MattersLet us slide into your DMs.Sign up for theTeen Voguedaily emailCheck this out: PARIS, FRANCE - MAY 29: Serena Williams of The United States competes during her ladies singles first round match against Kristyna Pliskova of Czech Republic during day three of the 2018 French Open at Roland Garros on May 29, 2018 in Paris, France. (Photo by Matthew Stockman/Getty Images)Getty Images