My name is Shen, a freshmen at the New York City College of Technology. There’s currently two major I want to pursue, Communication Design and Accounting. It is very hard for me to decide since I find both majors very suitable for me. However, after taking the time to consider what is better for me, I decided to pick Communication Design. The reason why I choose this major is because of my passions for video games. I always been a big fan of video games ever since I was little. It is amazing how designers can develop interesting stories and 3-D animated or realistic characters that attracts our attentions. As time passes, I realized that I want to become a Game Designer because of my passions for video games. In the career field, video games is one of the world’s fastest growing industries, it contribute billions of dollars to U.S economy each year. In other words, there will be tons of opportunities in the Communication Design field. Besides that, what is better than turning your passion into a career you love? Plus I am a gamer myself too, which allows me to gather information and create something that will attracts the players. More importantly, I want the opportunity to create my own game. Therefore I believe this will be the best career for me. In order for me to succeed in this major, I need to cultivate conceptual thinking, creativity, and collaborative skills.

In New York City College of Technology, the department offer a two-year foundation to all students. “We offer a two-year foundation to give students a strong base in visual expression and communication.” (Biehl, par.3) The main task of the program is to prepare students to contribute in the field of advertising and design by cultivating conceptual thinking, creativity and collaborative skills. The program have the basic courses such as; drawing, design, color, typography, and photography. The important part is taking those courses and learn from it so that I can use the knowledge to succeed in the game design field. For this career, I learn that it deals with thinking critically and creatively to solve visual communication problems and develop multiple viable solutions to design problems. According to City College of Technology’s Catalog, The career options for Communication Design are “Advertising design graphic design, web design broadcast design/motion graphics or animation/illustration/game design graphics and explore the multi-faceted world of communication design.”(City Tech, par.1) As the options are listed above, there will be a lot options to choose from. After I graduate at City College of Technology, I want to become a Game Designer.

First, the reason why I think this is the best career for me is because I am the type of person that can think really far and deep. In other words, making the right decision, making smart choices, and planning ahead to achieve the optimum outcome. Therefore using Conceptual thinking can benefit me in this career field because it allows me to perceive and imagine, predict, hypothesize, conclude, and reflect. Also, I understand the importance of visual information such as pictures. A picture is worth a thousand words and it is a better way for people to learn. Sometimes when we learn things through words, it becomes difficult to understand. Of course, there’s still a lot of things I still need to learn such as how things are associated and connected. By using the visioning tools and demonstrate use of them, it showed me how things are connected and associated. “We do love learning and we’re good at it, but it is often frustrating in the real world because you don’t always get to go at the pace you want to go and often don’t immediately see the application of what you’re doing.” (Stuart, par.7) To understand things, we have to control the pace of learning so that we can take in all the information to something our brain will understand.

The second reason why this is the best career is because I am a gamer myself. I basically learned most of my English by playing video games through communicating with the other players online. “With games, learning is the drug.” (Koster, par.3) In other words, video games made learning fun and much easier for our brain to take in information. Games are fun because they teach us interesting things and they do it in a way that our brains prefer through system. It is my dream to have a job that is related to video games. Making games is still work, but work can be fun and it is hugely important to try to find something you are just satisfied doing every day. “Games allow us to create these little systems where learning is controlled and taken advantage of really brilliantly.” (Robertson, par.7) We can learn things better because we are learning in a system which allows our brain to absorb the information better. Therefore, I believe this will be the best career for me.

As I stated in the previous paragraph, it is my dream to have a job that is related to video games. I want to be able to create amazing games such as League of Legend, Call of Duty and World of Warcraft. When it comes to trying new games, I can tell which is a good game is and which is not. In order word, I am just a really experienced gamer. What attracts the people to play video games are the ones that provide us with interesting tools such as weapons or magic or surprise events. “Games give you a space where you have power.” (Robertson, par.10) It allow players to do something they can’t do in real life. Therefore, it makes them feel like they have the power, and it is a reason that attracts people to play video games. Overall, games must have something to capture our attention. However, I believe I will be successful at this career field because as an experienced game player, I understand what it takes to make a good game. Therefore, this is the best career for me as it gives me the opportunity to create my own game.

In New York City College of Technology, It offers a lot of courses that will prepare me to become a designer. The department provides course such as drawing, design, color, typography. “Courses will prepare students to meet the challenges of the profession: senior project, portfolio, the design team and an internship.” (City Tech, par.1) By taking these course it will help me develop conceptual thinking, creativity and collaborative skills which will lead to becoming a designer. New York City College of Technology also notify me when there’s internship opportunities, which I fell really thankful. Being an internship is really important because you get to experience what Communication Designers will be doing, and it prepares you in the future when you graduate. New York City College of Technology also help me enhance my skills such as thinking critically and creatively to solve visual communication problems and multiple viable solutions to design problems to prepare me for the future.

As you can see, New York City College of Technology prepares me for my future. It provides everything I will need for Communication Design. For those who have a strong passion for video games like me, I believe this is the best career option for you because this is a job where you can design games, characters, graphics, modeling, and more. Basically it is fun every day at work. However, things will get complicated as you advance, I recommend to you guys to have the basic skills such as drawing, design, color, typography and photography so that it can give you a strong base in visual expression and communication.

Works Cited

Biehl, Mary A. “A Message from the Chair.” Department of Communication Design.” Web. 10 May 2015.

New York City College of Technology (City Tech). “Communication Design.” New York City College of Technology college catalog 2014-2015. Web. 10 May 2015.

“The Seduction Secrets of Video Game Designers.” Game Culture. Keith Stuart, n.d. Web. 10 May 2015.

“Sally Reynolds.” Real Life Stories. Sally Reynolds, n.d. Web. 10 May 2015.

Introduction

In this project, I reflected on my thoughts and planned how to think with a sharper focus going into the future. I spent a day on write down my thoughts. After writing down the thoughts, I asked myself what I want to focus on in the future. In order for me to have clear thoughts, I started to think what I will be doing in five years. Then I explained the steps on how to achieve what I have in five years.

Thinking in Writing

My thoughts of the day were mostly all about job and my family. I’ve been thinking what I should do with my life, job or focus in school. School was never my thing that’s why I want to look for a job. I always think how can I find something I enjoy doing and in the meantime make money and support my family. Well, there’s one thing I really want to do but my family never supported me. I want to become a Professional Sports Player, but this sport is different from the normal sports. It is more like an online sport, such as playing games tournament. It might sound silly, but each tournament is two million dollar in USD. In overall, most of the thoughts are about how to become successful in life.

Thinking Visually

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I skip breakfast most of the time due to morning classes. When I don’t eat my brain function really slow and I get really sleepy. It leads to thinking about food because of starvation.

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I probably think about money the most because everything is about the money. For examples; buying supplies, food, and etc. Nowadays, everything became so expensive. So I have to think of a way to earn money.

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Biking is my favorite exercise, I go biking every day depending on the weather. Whenever I get frustrated with school, it leads me to think about my bike. Biking is what I do whenever I’m frustrated because it empties my mind.

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I hate school work, but I have to do it. Sometimes it makes me frustrated because some of the work it’s about learning it yourself and some of the work is hard to understand. It makes me worry every day.

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Career is one of the things I think about the most beside money. I always wanted to become a League of Legend Esport Player. To become a professional player I have to think about how I can achieve that goal.

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I think I should focus my thinking on school. School is all about education and that’s what I need the most right now because I believe will help me become successful.

Thinking Reflectively

My name is Shen. I am currently a League of Legend player for the Esport. Esport is known as Electronic Sports, is a term for organized multiplayer video game competitions. This job is not as simple as it seen. For players, bringing entertainment and excitement to the audience is a must but our main goal is to win the World Final. The reason I said this job is not as simple as it seen is because players can get eliminated in any minutes and their hard working efforts will go waste. We have to practice constantly every day to improve our skills in order for us to keep our current position. I’ve been living with my teammates ever since I joined the team which was two years ago. At this moment, I am going to tell myself from the past what I should do in order to achieve what I have now. There will be many obstacles in your path but as long as you have ambitions and dedication you will achieve your goal. You should focus on the things that can guide you to success, such as education, practices constantly, and most importantly is to have a positive mind all the time.

Nowadays, most people know about the League of Legend tournament. You can hear people talk about it everywhere you go because it became like a sport. Playing League of Legend is like playing an NBA game or Football game while millions of people watch you perform. Going into this path won’t be easy, it is like picking one in a million. In order to be the one, you have to work much harder than other people to get the opportunity. The first thing you need to focus is Education. In other words, college is what you need because it will help you become a professional League of Legend player. Some colleges have this program called North American Collegiate Championship (NACC). NACC is a program where it gives college students an opportunity to qualify for North American Collegiate Championships. Not all colleges have the Program NACC, mostly the good colleges. To get into a good college, you will need to study hard and have a good GPA so you can get into one. After you get into a good college, you will get the opportunity to become a professional League of Legend player and it will guide you to success.

After becoming a professional League of Legend player and having a team, that’s where things get serious because their career is on the line. It turned into a battlefield from a playground. If the players get eliminated, it means their career is in danger. Therefore, this turned into a battlefield. Also, if players get eliminated from the tournament, all their efforts and time will be wasted because Championship Final is once a year. To prevent from getting eliminated, you need to practice at least eight hours per day. It will improve your individual skills, develop good communication with teammates. Another thing is learning from your mistakes. For example; un-cooperating with teammates, miscommunicating and making bad decisions. However, admit wrong and learn from the mistakes will help you develop wisdom, sense to make good decisions and gain experience. By gaining experiences, it will help you expand your skill level and develop a unique play style.

Last is to have a positive mind. Having a positive mind can be good for your mind and body. People who are positive thinkers tend to have a healthier body, less stressed, and more likely to become successful than the negative ones. I know walking down this path is full of struggles but in the end it will be worth it. Victor Kiam once said “Even if you fall on your face, you’re still moving forward.” I believe this quote means that you shouldn’t give up no matter how hard life gets and be strong. When things get too hard, just take a break and think on the bright side because negativity will not help you achieve your goal. If you turn your thoughts from the negative ones into positive, you will start to notice solutions and will understand that every problem is an opportunity to grow. I believe this will be the key to success if you can stay positive.

As you can see, those are the few things I focused on before I was a Professional game. It helped me accomplished what I wanted. However, I deeply hope that you can do the same as me. Without you, I would’ve ended up doing something else in my life. I believe if you focus on those few things like I did, you will become successful. One thing I can promise you is that you will not regret it in the future. In fact, you will be thankful that you choose this path because not everyone get to have a career that they desired. Last thing I want you to remember is that nothing is easy. You have to keep pushing yourself to exceed your own limits and work for the thing you want to achieve.