Competitive passion meets creative expression

“I’m very self-competitive — I want to be the best version of myself I can be.”

Rachel Molnar ’26 enjoys doing a subtle dance between the thrill of competition and the joy of creative projects.

Molnar was already a decorated artist in multiple mediums before she transferred to Clark last fall — her creations have attracted hundreds of thousands of followers online. In her Becker School of Design & Technology classes, Molnar hopes to indulge her passions as a maker and strengthen her prowess as a player on Clark’s Valorant Red Esports team. Valorant is a popular first-person tactical game.

“I’ve loved art and games all my life. It’s been a circle of interest for me,” Molnar says.

Clark’s intimate campus setting was attractive to Molnar. She finds solace in the smaller classroom sizes where she can foster connections with peers, a departure from the impersonal large lecture hall courses at her former institution.

“I feel like I matter here,” she says with a smile.

Playing on the Esports team gives Molnar her competitive fix.

“I love the thrill of winning and losing and trying to get my rank back. I’m very self-competitive — I want to be the best version of myself I can be,” she says. “I’m not putting in all this extra work to be the best in the class, but to test my own abilities.”

When she was a senior in high school, Molnar began making intricate wooden plaques inspired by video games. She uses a bandsaw to cut the right shape and creates a pixelated flourish with careful painting. She began to record herself working and post the footage to TikTok.

“The first video I did blew up and got more than 40,000 views, which was mind-boggling at the time,” says Molnar. “I thought, ‘People must really love this.’”

Molnar’s bubbly personality and artistic style have attracted a significant social media following. She boasts more than 617,000 followers on TikTok, where several videos of her have gone viral. Molnar displays the breadth of her art skills to her more than 41,000 Instagram followers. Photos of pieces hand-painted in bright purples, reds, and blues pop next to fine-line sketches and digital creations.

Watching her follower count increase in real time was a bit overwhelming, Molnar admits.

 “I just liked sharing my art and getting feedback,” she says. “I never expected to gain a following like that.”

Molnar mainly creates artistic content, but she also streams games on Twitch on occasion.

“I stream Minecraft Bedwars, which is like Capture the Flag, and Valorant,” she says. “I tend to lean toward competitive games.”

Currently, Molnar is taking a break from content creation to focus on her studies at Clark, and her art. Last semester, she placed third in the annual BSDT art contest.

“I was doing 12 hours a day of streaming, posting and editing videos, and doing art commissions,” Molnar says. “That sort of schedule is impossible to continue now.”

Her post-college aspirations include creating her own game from the ground up or working at the studio that created Valorant.

“It would be cool to design my own games and have a big hit by myself like Toby Fox or Scott Cawthon, but I’d also love to work for Riot one day,” Molnar says.

More than anything, Molnar just wants to put her effort into something she loves.

“As long as I’m proud of what I’m working on,” she says, “that’s enough for me.”