Coming to the end of my senior capstone class, I have come
to several realizations, some good and some bad. First off,
I am not ready for the real world.
Don’t get me wrong, I am done with school. After 17 years in the American educational system,
have learned my fair share. I don’t have
supreme knowledge of everything but one of the joys of life is to constantly be
learning and self-improving. What I mean
when I say that I am not ready for the real world is that I’m just not ready
for a career. That might sound weird since
most people go to college to prepare for a better job in the work force. That is why I went to college, I would love
to have a high paying job, wouldn’t anyone.
But my issue has become that I am bored.
All my life I have lived in the same house. It is a decent home, in a decent are of the
Eastern Panhandle of West Virginia.
Though I may have been born in Maryland, I consider myself a West
Virginian. I lived in the same house for
17 years, through K-12 and then I went to college. I went to Shepherd University, a beautiful college
located in the Eastern Panhandle of West Virginia where I lived on campus and in
the town for my first 4 years. I ended up
with an extra semester to which I moved back home to my parents’ home and which
is still my current residence. As you
can see, I have spent a lot of my life in the same area; living, learning, and
working and I think it’s time for a change.
I want to travel, see the world, and experience new things. The cultural events this I accomplished this
semester showed me that. Going to Atlanta
to see a music festival and D.C for the Porchfest were I opening experiences. There is so much more out there than my
little bubble of the Eastern Panhandle and finding these new experiences will
not only grow me as an artist and designer but also as a person.
The second thing that I realized is that I need to really
get my procrastination under control which happens to be another reason why I
don’t think I am ready for the real world.
It’s a problem. As much as I try
to ignore it, I am actually just procrastinating on solving my procrastination! I came into this semester knowing what I
needed to do since I had already taken both of these classes and yet, here am,
the last minute trying to get done what I need to just to pass. I had such high hope for this semester
because I knew what each already expected and needed done but I still waited until
the last moment possible to get done everything. Unfortunately this is not a problem that
schools teaches you to fix, just a problem that they warn you against. Though there might be several factors that
contribute to my problem such as my new job or the fact that I have grew so
bored and tired of school, those are all excuses and as a great football coach
once told me, “Excuses are like assholes.
Everyone has one and they all stink.”
It’s true, as much as I would like to keep making excuses on why I
couldn’t breeze through the semester, the truth is that I could have but I didn’t.
Finally, and on a more positive note, I learned what I love
to do. I guess I already knew what I liked
but I this semester help to reestablish it.
I may hate doing the research. I
may hate writing these blogs and papers.
But I do love other aspects. I
love designing and more specifically, illustrating. When it comes to doing the
designing and animation, I can do it, and I can do it quickly. If I was to work on a consistent basis and
not wait until the last minute to try to do it all, it could have been breathtaking. Nothing was or is more fun than sitting down
on Illustrator and just creating; be it the characters for my Capstone project
or a fun little yeti for a fictitious company ad for some made up company
to
sketching out the storyboards or other random ass drawing that pop in my head. If I could find a way to do just that for a
living, I would be set but unfortunately I have not had that epiphany quite
yet.
In the end, I am really thank full for my capstone for the
lessons that it had taught me. I may
have been stressed as hell toward the end of the semester trying to get it
done, but I did it. Though I wish I could
have been more consistent with my work to have the opportunity to get more help
from my instructors, I am still happy with what I was able to produce. I just need to continue to work to better myself
and improve my work to the point that I want it to be.
And we have final video, enjoy!
