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How You Found Your Cutie Mark (What You want to do and stuff)
We have so many amazing people here! Modelers, a juggler, comic artists, super IT guys, and a load of college students going towards their goal! So how did all of you found out that thing you wanted to do as a career?
Due to wanting to change majors again and having so many thing I want to do in design, I feel like a blank flank. -_-
Due to wanting to change majors again and having so many thing I want to do in design, I feel like a blank flank. -_-
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Going through Medicine meant I had to wait till I was in my late 30's early 40's before being a primary surgeon in a hospital, so I chose to be a Veterinarian rather than be a Medical Surgeon. I didn't realise how much fun the Veterinary Sciences course was and how broad the field was but am thankful for it.
(I chose really late, as in - the day before the final choices had to be sent to Universities - I was torn between Engineering and Health Sciences). I occasionally wonder about going back to University and doing Medicine or doing IT but still find my work rewarding.
So maybe that's what my cutie mark would point to, the learning itself and not the specific field. (Oh man, does that make me Twilight Sparkle? I would SO rather be Pinkie Pie.)
Then I wanted to build robots. Mega Man was Mega Tough, and could do anything since he was a robot. So I wanted to build robots.
Then I wanted to be a poet, because I won some random contests in first and second grade and stuff was published with my name in it.
Then I wanted to make video games. But I didn't know how, and writing letters to companies asking how usually got me cool trinkets and marketing materials, but didn't really tell me what I needed to know.
Then I wanted to make webcomics, because that's what the cool guys on the internet were doing, and I thought they were totally awesome.
Then I wanted to be a fighter pilot. I enrolled in cadet programs and tried to get my private pilots license. Little did I know the former program had some serious problems and the latter was not economically feasible for my family.
Then I wanted to be a journalist, because what's better than writing? And I could even be a video game journalist...
Then I applied to my University for Computer Science, because I thought I would be good at that. And that's where I've been.
I can't say that any of the above don't appeal to me anymore. I'd love to do all of them.
But if I had a defining "thing" about myself that always reflected my interests, it would probably be running games for people. At three and four I had watched my grandfather play zelda and later dragon warrior. I would draw the inventory lists from the games and their instruction manuals. I would make up games for my cousins and brothers to play, and as the oldest of them I usually orchistrated these kinds of things on weekends when we would all be at my grandparents. I would try to get my friends to play "the game" (essentially LARPing) based on my rules and lists. And we had a lot of fun. I learned how to play the bad guy, take the loss, and roleplay all sorts of characters. This came and went. Eventually there was Heroquest and some other quasi board-game/rpgs. Then later yet there was D&D. And making games that were fun for other people has basically been my defining schtick for my entire life. Maybe my "cutie mark" would be a chaos sorcerer, or dice and a DM screen.
When I was eight, I got glasses. Once the implications sunk it, that I could not be an astronaut with less that perfect vision, I cried for a week straight. You couldn't even be a lousy fighter pilot.
So, as I sat in class, dejected, no idea where I was going, I kept drawing little spaceships. Throughout the rest of elementary school and high school I had a pencil in my hand, drawing and designing and writing stories. I've never really been able to focus on anything else, the creative drive sort of consumes me. I can barely go a day without drawing something; I actually have a hard time at cons as a result.
If I'm not able to go out and explore new worlds, I'll make them myself.
That's how I became an artist. It's also why the space core makes me tear up a bit.
Anyway, as useless as it'll probably be to someone in your situation, here's my story:
I pretty much always wanted to be a comic book artist. As a kid, I used to draw little comic strips and comic books. Drawing was how I spent most of my free time from as far back as I can remember, until I was about 20. Toward the end of that period, my focus shifted from comic books to illustration -- I thought I'd be painting book covers and the like. Then I joined a band, and basically quit drawing for for most of my twenties. When I was about 27, I'd been working the night shift at Target for four years, and I realized that I had no plan for my life, and wasn't going anywhere. It scared me enough to go running back to the one thing that I had any reasonable expectation of being able to make a living at. I had a few false starts getting back into art, and my skills had atrophied pretty badly -- I recently pulled out some old high school sketchbooks, and was appalled to discover that I had drawn better at 16 than I did at 27. I think it was tough to get back into because my motivation was fear of the future, rather than love for drawing. But as I drew more and more, I fell more and more back in love with art, and eventually something clicked, and I was able to get really serious and make art my priority again. From there, it was/is just a matter of time.
Also, I took an animation survey class and found out that I do not have the patience to animate anything.
Not that I endorse violence against Tyrannosaurs, of course. I mean, look at the thing. Or, skeletons of it, anyway. It's got wee little arms, poor thing can't even wank, you'd be pissed off and eat dinosaurs too.
As far as stuff I like and am passionate about, my Dad had an Atari 2600, my elementary school had Apple //s, and my Uncle was into this weird thing called anime.
In high school, I joined the robotics team, which competes in Botball. Our first year was a huge success (although I can't take any credit for it; we didn't end up using the only part I built). We swept all three categories (unopposed, head-to-head, and documentation) in our regional competition, then went on to win third place in the international tournament. Since then, I've become head of mechanics for the team.
Also in high school, I got my TI84 calculator. I more-or-less taught myself how to program on it and have now written about 100 programs, either complete or in progress. Because of this, I wanted to go into computer science, even though I didn't even know what object-oriented programming was. I applied for an internship at Microsoft for this summer. I was brought in for an interview, but I didn't get the job. That was when I realized that I really don't know shit about computer science, and had better either learn or pick a different career.
Yet another thing that started in high school was learning Chinese. I don't really like learning the language, but I love knowing it. I took these god-awful Spanish classes in elementary school and junior high, so I originally started Chinese just to get away from Spanish. It's really panned out since then.
Because of my love of math and robotics, I want to major in engineering. I also want to minor in Chinese and either do study abroad or a foreign internship in China. I don't really want to major in computer science, but I'm still learning some coding.