Going into my soon-to-be graduation later this month, I’ve looked back at my career, and I have a mix of satisfaction for the amount of work and effort I put into what I’ve done and embarrassment for what I did do to achieve where I am right now. It’s one of those instances where you understand where you came from and what you did, but you never want to look back because it just feels that embarrassing. Though that doesn’t mean nothing great came out of it or that I didn’t have the greatest of intentions.
When I was younger and in high school, around the tail-end of my senior year, I originally wanted to go to Lehman College and study Graphic Design over there, simply because it’s easier to study when I’m in my hometown. Later on, I switched to Quinnipiac University solely for the fact that it has a major and courses for Game Design. Originally, I did so under the impression that Game Design would be my ideal future and what I want to pursue as a career purely because I played video games as a child and always wanted to make a video game of my own using the limited knowledge I had at the time. That is until I actually came to Quinnipiac and started my freshman year, which might I say, didn’t go super well, to put it lightly for my own sake. My priorities were with other aspects of my life, I started procrastinating way more as a result, my grades started to plummet, and my family was not happy about it. Sometime in the Spring semester, I started picking it back up, but there was still a long, rough, road ahead of me, and I guess I didn’t want to face it. Looking back, my priorities should have been set towards helping my goal in completing college and I should’ve been more diligent in getting work done before anything else, but for whatever reason that I found out later on, that was never the case.
Way back in high school, they always prepared me for the road ahead, for college, even getting me to do college level work in order to be, at the very least, mentally prepared for what’s in store for me. While it was a good tactic, the fact that I was able to coast by from doing the bare minimum, along with simply memorizing everything, was probably the main aspect that played at my downfall. I was never pushed to try and do something diligently and with great haste to where I was complacent and content with just doing the same thing everyone else was doing, turning in the bare minimum of work and even dismissing studying completely. After reading an article, “OPINION: High school doesn’t prepare students for college” along with some self-reflection, I came to understand why it is that people like me don’t really come prepared for college, especially after reading these words, “She said college allows students more freedom and forces them to learn what works for them. With college, she said students are expected to be adults right away and told to look at the syllabus or schedule to keep track of work. Yet in high school, many teachers will frequently remind students about upcoming assignments, and the school itself may provide free planners to jot down assignments in.”
Not only was I not prepared for the experience I would later have, but the long years of being in college and grinding away at the workload was also starting to take a toll on me. I was feeling very burnt-out from doing it all for many years to the point where I was having thoughts of dropping out in my junior year. I didn’t want to do it anymore, I didn’t want to continue doing this monotonous college work of grinding out projects to meet the lowest common denominator, I wanted to pursue my own career and learn different aspects of art and animation on my own, I wanted to be free of it. The only thing keeping me here is the idea of making my family happy, something that continues to be in the back of my mind for many years until I die.
Upon some self-reflection, it’s clear that I have many regrets about my previous actions and choices. However, I also know that there’s nothing I can do to change it. Only thing I can really do from here on out is learn from them and continue to move forward, even try to set my priorities straight. This is especially true for the future as there will be nothing saving me if this type of attitude persists as it will be on my hands to fix it if it ever goes south. Moving forward, I plan on being a better person and making better choices, however way I define that word ‘better’. The only person that can help me change and do better, aside from my family, is me, and I understand that. As an adult, while you have help all around you, there’s only so much that you can ask for before it makes you look like your having your hand held like a child, something I look to prevent from happening.
