There came serval points in my life I knew somewhat of what I wanted to do with my life. The first time I realized was when I got my first computer back in first grade. I will never forget that day when I came home from school and there it was sitting on my desk. I sat down in the chair and opened it up and I was amazed. That moment will never leave me. From there on out I was the IT person in the house because I knew how to work the computer more than anyone in the house and it was learning technology at such a young age. As primary school went on computer got more advance and I was always ready to get to our computer lab. This is when I knew what I wanted my career field to be in.
Through middle school I gained knowledge by joining computer club and being creative with the computer. This was my first time every doing something in this nature. I did more and more and I just loved doing it. I joined tech crew in 6th grade and ran lighting and sound with computers and it felt good for people to appreciate my talent at such a young age. This was the second time I knew what I wanted to do.
When I came to Jr. high there was no stopping me. The first day of school I joined their tech crew and only got better at what I did. After school I was de-bugging computers and removing virus and loved doing it., Every virus taught me more and by the end of the year I had no problem fixing computers.
Now in high school is where it changes a little. My sophomore year I took a class called video production 1 and it was one of my favorite classes that year. I looked forward going to this class and learning new things. My twin brother and I signed up for that class together thinking it would be fun to do together but the teacher immediately split us apart so we could see what we could do by ourselves and I can never thank him enough for that. Doing this gave me the opportunity to connect again with a long lost best friend and seeing how far I could come by myself. My brother and I were two of the top students in the class and always had an applause when our videos ended which felt good. It felt good because right before the teacher hit the play button I would have butterflies in my stomach and didn’t know how people were going to like it but knowing how much they liked it gave me a lot of motivation to work harder and harder. I always had to one up my last video.
Then came my junior year of high school one of the hardest years of my life. Junior year is the year you have the SAT’s and the ACT’s and have to start looking at colleges. My brother and I signed up for video production 2 which was just an advance video production 1. My brother and I didn’t work together at the beginning of the year but for the last video we finally could work together and it was our best video we made together. That year in high school I took a computer hardware course that was about the main components of what was in the computer but, I didn’t have as much fun in this class as I did video production. I started to feel that I was happier creating things on the computer then I was putting computers together.
Senior year began and I couldn’t take anymore video production classes because I had taken all of the classes they had to offer. I ended up taking a graphics design class with the same teacher and I am glad I did. The first two quarters of school would be graphics design and then the last two quarters was advance graphics design. Both of these classes were different because I wasn’t used to creating designs and still art on the computer verse videos. By the advance class I loved it for so many reasons. I was able to create something that was personal to me and that had a personal touch of mine that deep down in the piece of art. At end of my senior year the teacher brought it to my attention that there was a scholarship for art students and if you won you could get a Mac Book Pro. That was huge for me because I was always an Apple lover I just didn’t have the money to afford one of their computers. I had to create a website, video, and graphics all in one project and this project made me to who I am today. I worked endless hours on this project and wouldn’t stop till it was perfect. I finally submitted it and we were never told we got it until the night of the award ceremony. I went to my home room class that morning to find an invitation to the ceremony and I didn’t know what to think. It could have been I won the scholarship or another award a teacher may have gave me. I went to the award ceremony and I got the scholarship. I was overwhelmed with joy and I will never forget that day where all my hard work and dedication paid off.
My first year of college I decided to be in the computer information systems program which was a disappointment for me. I went through my first and second semester unhappy and didn’t think computers was for me anymore so I went to nursing and I had no idea what I was doing. I did this because I knew I would get a job after school but I knew it wasn’t what I set out to be and I felt that I was giving up and letting myself down.
I started this semester with a new mind set back in computer information systems and told myself I could do it but it didn’t work. No matter how hard I tried I couldn’t succeed and then I started thinking how did I get here. I began to realize that I chose this so I was guaranteed a good job but down deep inside it’s not what I really wanted to do with my life and computers. Right before Thanksgiving break I changed my major to graphics design and I think it was the better choice because it’s what I wanted to do with computers. I can go back to that feeling I got in high school walking in to the graphics lab and doing what I love and what I was meant to do. I was nervous because I started to think how am I going to get a job with a degree with this but felt more secure when I talked to a professional graphic designer from Syracuse.
Her name is Joanna Giansanti and I was able to interview her and ask how she felt when she was in my shoes with not knowing if there would be a job after schooling. Giansanti said, “I wanted to be a journalist. I majored in newspaper journalism and political science in college, hell-bent on becoming a political reporter. Design turned out to be a much better fit for my natural curiosity, but journalism school taught me a very important skill: how to tell a story. In my work, I make it my business to know and tell yours.” This really helped me realize if I always push for the best I will be able to have a career in the field that I love. I ask Giansanti what best and worst part of her job was and she said “it’s when I see the joy in the clients after they see their graphic or how much they like it because it tells me that I did a good job. There is day when I get stuck on designs and find myself stressing which would be the not so fun part” When I was a kid my parents always told me do a job that you love waking up and not depressed to every time you go. I asked her if she could give me one piece of advice and why and Giansanti said, “Be a nice person, it might sound weird that I am telling you this but being a nice person will get you a long way” She said this because when you are a nice person the clients will remember you and come back and spread the word of your company in good word just because you were a nice person. The final question I asked her was what would someone not in this job be surprised about and she said “the amount of fun it is to make graphics and how easy some can be and how difficult it is sometimes. There really isn’t a base to making graphics because each graphic is different” I thank her for that and I plan to follow everything she told me and I plan on moving to New York City to go continue in my dreams by going to a school that specializes in graphic design so I can become a good artist and learn from the best. There comes a time and point where you have to follow your dreams and I believe this was what I should be doing with my life because I am happy doing it. Therefore, computer graphic arts is who I am and who I will always be.
