Hello class my name is Khoury Douglas, also known as K.D. My hobbies include playing sports and making music. My main goal right now is to focus on my music, but I am also working towards my mechanical engineering degree as a career goal. Over the summer I mainly worked and made music with a couple friends. Covid pretty much ruined anything else I was going to do.
When It comes to writing I like to think of myself as very capable. I know how to switch my vocabulary and the way I write when the situation calls for it, and I know how to get my point across. I believe my biggest weakness is that I may come too direct when I write, that and how I do not know my other weaknesses. My favorite genres of reading tend to mainly deal with fantasy, but my have elements of other genres as well. For example, I consider The Percy Jackson series fantasy since it deals with Greeco-Roman Mythology, however it takes place in modern times. When it comes to science fiction, my only experiences with it include movies, mainly the Star Wars franchise however Pacific Rim and Star Trek are also science fiction.
From this course, I mainly expect to learn how science fiction connects to so many subjects in the world, how the ‘fiction’ is slowly becoming a ‘reality’, and how I may be able to apply what I learn else where.
Hi, my name is Phillip Persky. I am a transfer student studying hospitality management. I have had a long road in college. I started at University at Buffalo, but I transferred back home to pursue this degree. I am not sure what led me to this degree, but I see myself in a management position as my career. I hope to one day work in other countries and get to experience different cultures.
In terms of interests, I am a huge fan of photography and traveling, which usually go hand in hand. I love to hike and see new trails all over the state of New York. One of my greatest desires is to own my own business and be able to travel whenever I want. I currently work as a delivery driver for an Italian restaurant. I was mostly worked this summer, but I did make a small trip to Boston and enjoyed the harbor.
As a Writer, I feel that in terms of strengths, I am very creative and can create very good descriptions. One of my biggest weaknesses with writing is Grammar, which has always been an issue because it wasn’t taught and reinforced in middle and high school. I enjoy writing stories, but I also enjoy writing non-fiction because it’s nice to write when you have facts to write from. I dislike writing about stuff I do not enjoy and find fun. I am a strong reader and thinker and I strive to read and think more. I really enjoy books about understanding how people learn and process information. I only have used zoom, but I am pretty good with technology. My favorite genre is probably science fiction, but I do prefer it on the big screen over books. My favorite book ever is written is the Da Vinci Code. I am a huge Star Trek, Star Wars, and any type of supernatural type stories. Charmed (The Original) was a great work of science fiction and was cool to integrate with modern society. Well, I learned from Star Trek and Back to the Future that the concepts they mention in the show or movie are just years from being actually created. I feel that science fiction gives me inspiration about what could be. I expect to find this course very interesting because I love science fiction and the concepts of it.
My name is Mafruza Islam. This is my third year in City Tech. My major is Architectural Engineering and I would like to say I have a creative mind and way of thinking. I was very fascinated with building stuffs from very young ages. As I grew older, I started learning more about buildings, how to design and construct them. In college, I took the Architecture as a major and I realized I have a very strong passion for it.
I took this class because I needed an elective class and when I looked at this class, I decided to try it out, so here I’m writing a post for this class. As for openlab, this is my first time using this site so I’m still trying to understand how everything works but I believe I’ll get the hang of it.
My favorite things to do when I’m bored is cook, take a walk, listen to music. I love to try out different kind of foods, hobbies etc, so I don’t really have a hobby. But I do like to paint and draw. I hate coffee and tea. I love water, even though that might sound weird, but drinking water, watching water flows, rains are my favorite. That’s all I could think about myself for now. Thank you 🙂
Hey my name is Zeest, I’m a junior at City Tech. One of my hobbies is going to the gym, It’s my way of relieving stress. Due to staying home I started baking with my family and it’s been fun.
I didn’t have an internship or work through the summer due to Covid-19. My favorite genre of movies is horror/thriller. Some of my favorite shows are The Handmaid’s Tale, and yes The office.
 I only used openlab Once prior to this year and never really understood it so it was a bit confusing trying to navigate which is why I’m submitting my response late sorry! I’m pretty good with technology overall though.
One of my weaknesses as a writer is sometimes I can be in the zone writing without double checking leading to grammar mistakes also not actively reading and losing concentration. My strengths would be structuring and paying attention to details.
I picked this course because it seemed interesting sci-fi is also a genre I enjoy watching and learning about. My expectations from this course is looking at things in a different perspective because I haven’t taken a class like this before.Â
One of my favorite books growing up was from Rick Riordan. I love greek mythology and his Percy Jackson & the Olympians series were my favorites.
I look forward to learning more about science fiction.
Hello everyone, my name is Shamach Campbell. This is my final semester of college before getting my BFA in Communication Design. I originally was going to go into nursing while learning about graphic design as a side hustle, but between for love for art learning new tools and programs, and creating things from scratch I decided to pursue graphic design and animation full-heartedly.
I love animation; if I’m not watching the latest seasonal anime or discovering an awesome video online, I am looking up tutorials and analyzing different shows and animated films for the story and “Sakuga” moments. I am also an avid gamer sometimes to my detriment. I often like playing “Metroidvania” type games like hollow knight and celeste, but I also love games like more experimental games like the fighting game For Honor or VR games like Beat Saber. It got to a point to where I went to an arcade and they were teaching me how to make VR games
Most of my experience with science fiction comes from YouTube a tv. Shows like “Dr. Stone” that is all about using science to restart humanity from 0, to psychological thrillers like “Parasyte: The Maxim” that use alien parasites to tell a story about what it means to be human. I am also a fan of channels like “Because Science” that ask a lot of questions about real science about fictional characters or scenarios
In terms of what I’m expecting out of this course, I’d say a newfound appreciation and tips for writing my own sci-fi stories. Not a day goes by I which I wished to create an epic tale while also nerding out about scientific principles and theories.
Hey everyone, I’m Paulo and I am a 21 year old junior studying Mechanical Engineering. Right now I have a career as a Project Manager for a subcontractor construction company that deals mostly with painting and different types of coating systems. I know this doesn’t have much to do with my major but I study Mechanical engineering more as kind of a hobby or plan b because I really enjoy the hands on aspect of it, something about building something with my hands and getting it to work is really satisfying to me, kind of like putting together a puzzle. I would say I’m pretty good with my hands and most of my hobbies reflect that whether it be magic, playing guitar, freediving, or training Muay Thai.
All of my hobbies helped me grow into the man I am today. I started playing guitar in 5th grade, there was a class in my school where they gave us all guitars and they would teach us the basic chords but my love for Guitar started with the PS2. Guitar Hero 3: legends of Rock was my favorite game to play when I was younger and every time I played it I felt like a complete rock star. At some point I asked my dad for my own guitar, a real guitar not just the piece of plastic from the video game. I still have that acoustic guitar to this day and it’s probably one of the guitars in my collection that I play the most, despite having some really nice professional grade guitars I always end up with that beat up, old acoustic in my hand. I learned my first magic trick at around the same age, my friend showed me a magic trick and showed me how to do it right after (not really very magician-like of him). It was a fairly simple trick but still very impactful, after practicing it about 2 or 3 times I had to show it off so I went to my art teacher and it worked! There I was some kid in the 6th Grade leaving some adult impressed with just a deck of cards. As I started performing that trick to multiple people I started getting bored of doing the same trick over and over again and at the same time people were always asking “Great trick! Do you have anymore” and I never did so that summer I spent most of it learning new tricks and new ways to impress people. From then on in every school that I attended I was always ” the Magic Guy”, a title that I hold proudly. But as i grow older it gets harder to perform magic tricks to new people given all the different responsibilities I have to fulfill, but either way I still really enjoy performing.
I would say that writing is one of my biggest weaknesses, especially when it comes to “scholarly essays”. I don’t mind writing if its something I enjoy or even on a topic I enjoy, but if its something i have no interest in it will take me forever to even come up with an idea about what to write about, I also really struggle with grammar. There are still times where I enjoy writing and reading and that’s when it sucks me in, like if I’m writing something and I have some type of flow where ideas are just flowing in my mind or if I’m reading and the story is so enticing that I can’t even look away from the book. My favorite type of genre is Fantasy and my favorite text from this genre is “Journey to the West.” I don’t have much experience with science fiction outside of movies like Back to the future, Ready Player One (I know this one’s a book as well but i have not read it), All the marvel movies , Jurassic park. I can see connecting Science fiction to my major in the sense of building all the interesting objects in the science fiction world ( Imagine a real life hover board like in Back to the Future Two). I am pretty handy when it comes to technology or anything in general so Online classes shouldn’t be much of a problem and as far as my expectations for class i don’t have much i just thought this class would be interesting because it reminded me of one of my favorite classes i had in High School dealing with Fantasy books. I’m excited to see what this class has in store for this semester.
Photo of me walking across The High Line in Chelsea, during the summer.
My name is Edward, I’m a senior at City Tech, majoring in Communication Design, with a focus in Illustration. I like to come up with ideas for stories, listen to music, sing, draw portraits and character designs, read, and play video games like Control and Destiny. This summer I spent quarantine working on a self-assigned art project, working on a story I created and caught up on some shows and video games. My current career goal is to be a character designer in the video game industry. For winter break, if the pandemic gets any better, I may travel to Montreal, Quebec, for their winter festival, and because it’s one of my favorite cities that I’ve been too.
As a writer, reader, and thinker, I think my strengths are my attention to detail along with creativity. I like to know every detail of a story when reading and especially when writing since I want every story I create to make sense to whoever reads it and to avoid potential plot holes. I think my weaknesses are descriptive writing, and occasionally reading too fast. When writing, reading, and thinking critically, I most enjoy world-building and thinking about some of the possibilities outside of the story’s timeline from start to end, such as, what is the potential future of a fictional world after the author is done writing about it. I think what I dislike most is having to read or write about a story that I find uninteresting but that can be important to growing as a writer and a critical reader.
I have a good amount of experience with OpenLab and Zoom having used them for previous classes. My favorite genre of literature would probably have to be supernatural fiction, so stories like The Power of Five/Gatekeepers Series by Anthony Horowitz, but I also like science fiction. My favorite text is a manga called Tokyo Ghoul by Sui Ishida. It’s a dark fantasy story about a college student that becomes a ghoul and it explores a lot of different themes. It’s also filled with a lot of symbolism and references to other classical literature such as The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka.
I think I first became interested in science fiction when I started watching a British show called Doctor Who. To me, science fiction is a genre about the limitless possibilities of scientific advancements and the stories that come as a result of that. My main interests in science fiction are future technology and space travel. Some of my favorite science fiction books are The Zodiac series by Romina Russell, and Psyren by Toshiaki Iwashiro; for movies, Alita: Battle Angel, Ghost in the Shell, and Nerve; for shows, Orphan Black, Black Mirror, and Kiznaiver; and for video games, Destiny 1 and 2, Deus Ex Mankind Divided, and the upcoming Cyberpunk 2077. Science fiction connects to my major and work, in the stories I make and the characters I draw. In a previous class, I’ve written a short science-fiction story. I also wrote a detailed outline for another science-fiction story with some character designs for my character design class. For this course I believe/hope I’ll learn how to critically analyze stories in the science fiction genre.
Hey, I’m Derick and I’m a 20 year old sophomore studying Business and Management of Fashion. My biggest interest is expression of creativity regardless of the medium. I believe that expressing yourself usually doesn’t come about easily and finding a creative outlet helps in finding your strengths in multiple areas in life. A large number of my hobbies involve being creative including playing the guitar, sketching, designing, painting, and helping my friends create music in the studio.
As big of a role creativity plays in my life I also believe in being active. Active to take opportunities and working harder. I am very dedicated to my school work. I was nominated for two honor society’s in college so far and hoping to start my own fashion line soon. I am currently working closely with my team to create a label to help upcoming artists create music they love and get it to a larger audience and hoping one day with my team to make a career out of the hours we’ve put into working together.
Luckily, this summer wasn’t slowed down too much for me by the pandemic. My team and I would meet up at the studio constantly and work late. I also took this slow down to study the stock market and the forex market and invest my money. The only real regret of summer for me was my cancelled flight to Cancun, but I guess I can just imagine the beach with all my creativity.
Writing has always been a strong suit for me but I can honestly say that grammar has been the downfall of almost every writing piece. My teachers have known me for loving run on sentences and loosing points by not adding punctuation marks where they’re sorely needed. The thing I enjoy mostly about writing is the ability to express myself whether it’s just an informative essay about a topic I learned 5mins ago or a piece that allows me to write about anything without taking the topic too seriously. The thing I probably most dislike about writing is grammar because I can’t remember where to put a comma to save my life. I usually enjoy reading as my favorite genre is Fantasy and I’ve read all of the Percy Jackson books which became my favorite collection and some of the spin off books. On the other hand, the only thing I can say I dislike about reading are the scholarly essays that I’ve had to read in college which were absurdly boring. I haven’t had much experience with science fiction besides playing video games like black ops 3 that involve science fiction aspects or watching movies such as interstellar or The Martian. I see science fiction in my career because fashion pulls inspiration from everywhere. Movies have collaborated with Nike and other brands to make sneakers. There are also designers pushing the boundaries of fashion having garments that when wet change from one dress to a completely different type or dress or dresses like the floating dress that put themselves on for you designed by Hussein that take inspiration from what we believe is science fiction into reality. I expect to enjoy myself this course and since I already got the hang of zoom and online classes because of last semester I expect this class to be a lot easier then when I was still learning. I also hope to read more or watch more of the things that make science fiction an iconic genre in today’s society.
Me (on the left) with my godfather (right of me) Johnathon and my two cousins (on the right), Carlos and Jovani. This was taken at the Barclays Center where the 2018 Overwatch League Finals was being held.
Hello, my name is Justin Ynfante. I am currently in my 2nd year of college heading towards getting a Computer Science (CST) major. My time throughout school has been a really interesting one leading up towards college.
My hobbies mainly consist of playing video games, something that I have loved since I got my first console (being the GameCube) when I was around 6 years old. I am also a mild competitive player. In 2016, I started playing a game called Overwatch. This for 3 years was my favorite game and I was playing this in a very competitive state, of which I was known by many top players in the community. I always look back at it even today. Although I stopped playing the game for a couple of months now. My love for video games have also caused me to have an interest on how coding works, which led me into choosing this major. I am always interested on computers/phones and would love to learn how all of this works inside a little piece of metal that we all have right next to us.
Whenever I am not playing video games, I instead talk to my friends online, as well as browsing the web looking for interesting things to read. I also have a thing for trains ever since I was young. As of now since the COVID pandemic, I have been branching out towards more stuff to see what I find good to look at. Science fiction being one of them.
I know how to read and write pretty well, although sometimes I tend to procrastinate and end up writing something that isn’t correct and almost never look back at it. I tend to not self-check if I’m trying to get something done fast but I try before I submit. Saying this, I don’t like to read or write, but I will do said task no matter what the case is. In some cases though, I do enjoy doing said things. I have used OpenLab and Zoom in the Spring 2020 semester due to the pandemic, so I have some experience with using both platforms. Using technology goes back to my first phone, which was the iPhone 4.
My favorite genre of literature would be Fiction, as things being not real or fake always sparked a little bit of nostalgia in me. While I do not have a favorite text, a series of books called Bone which is a graphic novel happens to be my favorite overall. Currently, I do not have any experience with Science Fiction, but the thought on how technology may evolve in the future or how things worked in the past makes me wonder how all of this will change in just a few years. As per the name Computer Science, Science Fiction seems right up my alley in learning more about the Science aspect of things.
What I hope to learn in this class is to learn more about how technology was or can be taken to the next level. Whether this would be explained in TV shows, movies, books, videos or even real life scenarios. Always something that gets me thinking about this. I hope to learn more about this subject and those in this class.
   My name is Itmam Chowdhury. I am currently a Computer Engineer Major. I currently don’t know specifically what career I want to pursue after school at this time but I’m leaning towards the side of computer software. My interest in this major is from technology progressing exponentially and new innovations getting more advanced as it leads to computer engineering drastically taking a shift of change. I’ve got the opportunity to learn the process of building a computer when I was younger and gained software development experience in the past few years. These experiences really shaped up to why I wanted to follow the route of computer engineering.
    My hobbies consists of playing sports, video games, and reading books. Since COVID-19 started, I’ve been getting into video games and playing with friends. I barely played before COVID-19 started but since we’ve been stuck at home, I gave it a shot and it’s been fun playing with friends knowing we couldn’t see each other for a while. Since gaming does take a lot of screen time, i’ve got into reading books varying from African American literature, Science fiction, and mystery. My favorite book as of right now has to be The Autobiography of Malcolm X as it gives us a good idea of how Malcolm X spent his life from childhood to adulthood as an African American. Sports is something I’ve been playing and enjoying since childhood. I usually play basketball when I have the chance but I do like exploring something new.
    My experience with science fiction has to come from reading books such as Frankenstein and Fahrenheit 451. Both of these books were interesting to read and analysis as both books embodied the idea rejection and made me enjoy science fiction as it is my favorite genre. Going forward with this class, I really want to deepen my knowledge and experience with science fiction. As a writer, my strength would be thinking outside of the box and be creative with whatever I am writing about. As for my weakness, I would say thinking of a topic/thesis to write about. As I read, I am really good at annotating important and useful information that helps me built up ideas when I need to write. My weakness with reading would be losing focus while reading as the section I am reading isn’t that compelling to the rest of the book. What i mostly enjoy about writing, reading, and thinking is brainstorming new ideas. What i hate is probably being stuck on something either its a text or something i have to write. This is my first time using zoom but I have used open lab before for an engineering course.
