So it’s been a pretty crazy, in a good way, year. My first semester back in school I managed to get straight A’s, which honestly surprised even myself. I don’t think I ever had that happen any time after high school. This semester I probably won’t have quite as good of grades, but that’s because I’m also now working at the library on campus as a circulation aide. I got the job right when the summer semester started and love it so much more than what I was doing before coming back to school. It’s still a customer service kind of job but the patrons are so much better to work with than the ones I dealt with in my call center job. And having it work around my schedule for classes makes it a lot less stressful to think about during my off time – also something that got to be too much for me with my last job.
I also finished up the D&D campaign I was running! I didn’t talk about this a ton in previous posts but I was the DM for 7 players, which was a fun challenge in and of itself. We ended in July, leaving the story a bit open-ended in case these players wanted to do a sequel campaign of sorts. If it weren’t for the fact that life would soon be accelerating for a lot of us in the months afterward (like a couple of players having their first child, my wife traveling more for work, and a new school semester starting back up for me), then we potentially could have kept it going, but it got to a good stopping point. I’ll definitely make sure to give highlights of the story in a future post.
And now I’m near the end of my second semester back, with my finals coming up in just about a week. One of the biggest things I’ve been focusing on, on top of my classes and work, has been a portfolio that I’m submitting for getting into the program of my choice. What’s been nerve-wracking with this whole process is that it’s my third time trying to get into a program (having applied to the animation and film programs at BYU, being unsuccessful each time), and the whole reason I decided to come back to school in the first place. I’d be allowed to try again here at UVU if I don’t get in, but the applications are only accepted once a year… meaning I’d have to wait until a full year from now to try again. With all the credits I’ve already got from BYU and what I’ve done here, not getting into a program wouldn’t be the end of the world but it would put me in a bit of a bind as to my next moves. So I’ve got a lot riding on this, to put it mildly.
Which brings me to the main point of this post. In creating my portfolio submission, I got a great deal of help from my sister, Lindsay. She’s been in the graphic design industry for years and has seen and reviewed plenty of portfolios in her career. She was able to give me a lot of pointers as to what I want to try to communicate to others with a portfolio, and a brand as a whole. And that’s something I’ve honestly wanted to do with this site for a while, as well as my previous blog. So for anyone out there who may actually pay attention to this site you may notice some changes moving forward. I’ll try to have more than just blog posts (though I’ll definitely still keep the blog), but as I progress in my chosen career and life path I’m going to make this site a better place to document my work. Currently my portfolio pieces are on just a Google Sites page but I’ll move them here once I figure out a smooth way to do so.
Change can be good. I’m usually resistant to change. But I’ve got a good feeling about this one.
Marshall's Matters 