My Story
The journey that made me who I am todayAround my early twenties, when I started entering community college, I realized that my previous plans for my life where outdated. I have loved creating things for all my life and I was trying to find a medium that spoke to me. In my high school years, I decided to shoot for being a mechanical engineer since they were essentially ‘professional creators' in my mind. I would be able to create things that made people's lives better.
Entering college however, I quickly realized that mechanical engineering wasn't the medium that was right for me. I can't really explain why, it was just that it felt like my whole being was rejecting it. I had a nightmarish fear that I would become a mindless calculator, my only purpose being to make sure bridges don't fall, never getting the opportunity to truly create freely. It felt stale, rigid, and dark.
That time was dark for me, filled with depression and stress as I felt aimless in my life and dreams. I knew I wanted to create, but I hadn't found the right medium and the stress of not having a direction in a culture that glorifies steadfast purpose was almost more than I could bear. Later in college, I took an introductory programming course, and everything shifted. I was introduced to a medium that was as open, vast, and challenging as I had ever wanted. A perfect medium for me to create and expand into. I had never even considered going into software related fields before. I had and pre-conceived notions about it that blocked my judgement. After experiencing those programming courses though, I now felt like every fiber of my being was rejoicing. I switched my major, the depression lifted, and I had a clear goal and creative medium ahead.
Over time I continued to study my new career path into the world of software. I was overjoyed and loved every moment of it, even the miserable parts. Over time, it became more and more apparent that I would need to start narrowing down the field within software I wished to pursue. Software is an incredibly vast field filled with countless micro disciplines within it, much like the medical field. I was loving my general studies but did not have any particular draws to individual fields. I loved everything, from the algorithmic problem solving and attention to detail that comes from backend servers and hyper efficient C coded programs to the more aesthetic and openly interpretive frontends of website scripting and graphical shaders for lighting and animation software. I was not sure what I wanted to focus on.
That all changed when I discovered virtual reality. I had gone to university, and they had a rentable lab with a fully equipped first-gen HTC Vive available to try out. I thought it sounded cool so tried it out. That moment changed my life. To see a virtual world with the same senses as I would the physical one allowed me to see a future of unlimited possibility. It was an avenue for me to utilize the infinite possibilities I saw in software and bring it ‘out' into the ‘real' world. It was the first interface, while flawed and limited, to transcend the limitations of the screens and keyboards that separate us from, and disable us from truly utilizing the power of, the virtual world. I saw in this field, a chance for me to pursue everything I love, the power of software, the ability to improve and emotionally reach people's lives, to interconnect humanity, to create visual creations, and to pursue the unknown at the cutting edge of humanities understanding of technology, the world around them, and each other.