For as long as I remember, I wanted to work in the creative field. I always was fond with collaborating with other people to finish creative projects at school. Bouncing off other people’s ideas come naturally to me. More specifically, I wanted to make my own animated series, my own comic book, or anything that involved visual storytelling. I’ve been writing fan comics of cartoons that I liked way back from elementary school. I wanted to get serious about it ever since the beginning of middle school in the 6th grade when I started making original ideas and throughout middle school, high school, and even now, I’ve learned a lot about storytelling from the information that I gathered on the internet and just absorbing the content that I wanted to emulate.
After middle school and throughout high school, I’ve grown a distaste for schooling in general. I’ve always felt that school was for people still trying to find out what they want to do for the rest of their lives. It was frustrating for me, already knowing what I wanted to dedicate my life to doing, only for my parents and teachers who don’t even know what goes on in the field telling me what I need to know. I don’t fault them for anything, people make career changes all the time and they were looking out for me. School wasn’t all bad, I really liked my art classes that taught me to explore using different mediums to create art other than pencil and paper. For a while it felt like that was the only reason why I liked going to school and everything else was just filler.
At senior year of high school, my teachers and parents were pushing me to choose an art college attend so I can work in the creative field that I wanted. Anytime before senior year, I would be open to go to an art college but then I learned about how expensive it was to apply sometimes, then the cost of living there, then the crippling dept that many people talk about and saying how it’s worth it even though people like my parents who are still paying off debt. What also didn’t help were some testimonials from a few art students who graduated the high school saying that art college is still on the individual if they want to improve and it’s a good networking opportunity. So basically what I got from that is what I can gain from an art college, I can get from the internet for free with the determination I’ve had with me for 10 years.
After high school, I decided to go to a community college because it didn’t have the crippling debt factor of a regular university for a student who didn’t bother for applying for scholarships. I didn’t trust any school to take me where I want to go. I never doubted, it sounds like a lot of unneeded effort for a person who shifted from wanting to be apart of the industry to wanting to separate myself from it and be independent. My parents still insisted on transferring to a 4 year university at the time so my original major was film, two years at Wake Tech then transfer over to the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD). I still didn’t want to transfer so I changed to staying at Wake Tech and switching to Graphic Design and Advertising because the courses including this class were familiar to me.
Three years after that decision, I’m still here and scheduled to graduate in 2 more years. You can say I could be free in one more year if I stuck with the original plan. But I can’t be too certain if about anything. The FASFA program helped me get over my fear of being in debt. After this semester, I need to take 40 minute drives to the southern campus and I still don’t have my license yet. All of my classes have been online only for about a year or so. All this time at home is what I wanted ever since high school. It gives me time to work on the projects I’ve been wanting to work on but been too distracted by school to do so. I’ve been doing a lot of learning and improving on my own time. I even used some money that I do have to invest in digital assets. And now, I feel like a fisherman out at sea. Just waiting for the right opportunity. And I wouldn’t change a thing.
Exploring Visual Arts 