Visual/Design Background

Throughout high school, I devoted a good portion of my time into creating, developing, and editing visual media. While I was in a technology track during my sophomore year of high school, the majority of my classmates were in a separate “traditional” track, and took journalism. As a way to contribute to my grade, and eventually, communicate and share information with other high school students, I started creating and editing weekly newsletters and distributing them through email and social network sites to high school students at my high school. In a short amount of the time, I was in charge of newsletters for middle school and high school students. Soon, the idea for a yearbook club was discussed, and unfortunately, although it wasn’t able to get published, along with several other students, I worked hard to create dozens of pages filled with pictures, memories and words for the whole school from preschool students to graduating seniors.

Outside of school, I was involved in creating visual promotions for my parents’ store, such as fliers, videos, banners, and so forth. I started off lacking the necessary skills to take a photo that has correct lighting, or create an appealing look for fliers, but over the years, I began to feel more confident in the products I was creating, and felt that I had developed an eye for what I wanted something to look like. With a newly established mindset, I completed my practicum and a follow-up summer internship at the local community newspaper where I was a reporter, photographer, and journalist. It was the first time I was able to take the knowledge and skills I had developed into a new field.

Recently, a visual project I contributed to was for a yearbook for international study abroad students that attended Konan University in Kobe, Japan for the academic year 2019-2020. Since I joined the program halfway in January 2020, several photos from events and of students were already taken, so I contributed in helping formatting information and creating chibi-like sketches of a couple of students for the yearbook. Art and design has been a part of my life since I was young, and I hope that it can continue with me as I venture through my computer science career options.