It took 33 years to get me back in school. I graduated from High School in 1983, from my home town of Westerly, Rhode Island. Back then, “computers” were mainframes with CRT (cathode ray tube) terminals. There were no graphics, other than ASCII art.
We were lucky to have gotten a Commodore VIC-20 as a family Christmas present in 1982. That was my real introduction to computers and programming. I spent hours typing line-by-line (scripting, really) in BASIC for the VIC-20 to run a simple game. We had no digital storage. The code and the game were lost when the computer was turned off. I retyped that simple code many times.
In High School I wanted to pursue commercial art but I really wasn’t talented or patient enough with “analog” art. Digital art was really nonexistent, but MTV was. I was driven to leave home when I turned 18, as soon as I was an “adult.” My parents offered to help with college, but that also meant staying home longer. Not gonna happen.
My brother Bob had joined the Navy and traveled far away from home. My next-oldest brother Adam had joined the Air Force. He sent letters and pictures of his adventures. Considering my lack of patience, I decided to join the Air Force, learn a trade/skill, and then leave the military after four years. That was my young goal. I retired in March of 2010 after 27 years serving all over the world. My four-year plan became a 27-year career.
From the beginning of my Air Force career I voluntarily made posters, bulletins and random graphics whenever needed. Personal computing was advancing, and soon rudimentary printing programs were available. I was a natural at layout and design, and enjoyed the ability to spontaneously create. Then along came “the web.”
I was working in Washington DC in the early days of HTML, and was already well along with using Gopher , Archie and Usenet newsgroups. Oddly, in 1992 I thought that HTML would never last. Who would ever want to use a separate, special “viewer” for those HTML documents? A visionary I was certainly not!
My wife and I bought our first digital camera in 2001, while living in Japan. Shortly after, Nokia made a revolutionary cell phone that had a camera built in, of all things. Who would want such a thing? Along with the explosion of digital photography came digital editing and graphics. I took to that like a duck to water.
After 9/11, Congress passed the Post-9/11 GI Bill, which was a three-year scholarship to military members who served during 9/11, with a minimum of three years of active duty service. I transferred with my family to Tampa (MacDill AFB) in 2005. My two daughters would both graduate from Blake High School, just north of the university, and for nearly four years I drove through the UT campus (North Boulevard) on my way to/from my daughters’ school. I thought it was nice campus, uniquely situated in downtown Tampa, a city that I love. I determined that I would attend this school as long as it was eligible under the Post-9/11 GI Bill. More than eligible, it was a “Yellow Ribbon” school, which meant that the school would cover costs above the GI Bill scholarship for the scholarship’s duration. I was sold.
UT also offered a unique degree program that piqued my interests immediately: Bachelor of Art in New Media Production. This program, spanning multiple disciplines, was exactly what I was searching for. With focus areas in digital art, music, photography, creative writing and videography, I am in heaven. Sometimes I wish I could attend full time. Unfortunately, I do have a family and bills to pay, so I must continue working while I attend college as a non-traditional student. However, I am very excited to explore all these topics and channel my unleashed creativity towards so many things I am curious about. And, hopefully one day, I can put all of this learning to use in my own creative business effort – whatever that may be.
That’s how I got here. But where I’m going is to be determined. I am so looking forward to figuring that out.