About Me

Leadership Experience

  • Served as co-president from May 2020 - May 2022. Helped to develop the esports program at the University of Colorado Colorado Springs. Talked with program heads at the club sports program and helped keep the club officially recognized as a school official Club Sport and work around Covid restrictions. Worked to organize tryouts, select talent, and keep in touch with teams including games like League of Legends, VALORANT, and Overwatch. Also worked to create the club Discord and run things like community nights, school steam accounts, and logo rebranding.

  • Started off as Lead Game Designer in pre-production and planning. After that was the Lead Tester during early development and a Feature Team Lead during the agile process. Also was Lead Level Designer up to release.

  • Project lead for client work. Worked with a client to develop a project charter and defined the scope of work and project period. The project consisted of updating an existing website and reaching out to alumni of the program to set up interviews. From those interviews, we would write creative stories of how the program has helped them in their life. Led wireframe development for website and contacted alumni to set up 13 different interviews.

  • Team Captain for collegiate VALORANT and Overwatch teams. Set up scrims/matches and shot called for the team during scrims and matches at 4000+ SR in Overwatch. During VALORANT I set up scrims/matches and shot called for Diamond+ scrims and matches.

  • Build lead for 3 years at FIRST Robotics club at Regis Jesuit High School. Led the design process for each robot we created and also was the subject matter expert in electronics and pneumatics. Was captain and the driver for the field team and also participated in speaking to sponsors, the school, and recruiting from middle schools.

My life has been full of moments where I ask myself, “who am I” or “why am I here”. To me, these questions could never show the complexity of how I got where I am today. My story is ongoing and constantly evolving. It’s a story of growth, a story of discovery, and finally a story about finding my purpose.

            Going into high school I found myself looking for new friends as many of mine from middle school ended up going to different schools. I ended up finding myself in the Robotics club as something about it pulled my eyes to it, the competition. Before long though I was fully engrossed in the design process, and was picking up new skills like pneumatics, electronics, programming, and even machining. Before long I became build lead and ended up spending hundreds of hours working with others to work towards something. The companionship I found in working towards a common goal with everything we had was intoxicating.

            The thing that I loved about Robotics was the learning and improvement that was constantly going on. Mentally I was struggling quite a bit going through high school and Robotics helped me to cope. During the offseason and after hours, I found myself feeling empty and wanting to do something to help keep my mind off my current situation. I had played games for fun up until now, but after experiencing the learning and competitiveness of Robotics, I found myself yearning for more competitive experience to grow. 

            It started with games like League of Legends. During my off-time, I would casually play it with friends because it had that competitive aspect and my friends enjoyed it. I wasn’t very good in my group of friends, they had been playing for a while and had lots of established knowledge that I was lacking, and despite trying to rank up I had always blamed things such as the meta or randomness because I figured everyone else knew something I didn’t. After a while, it felt hopeless but then a new game was scheduled to come out Overwatch.

           

My Personal Statement

For me, Overwatch is what I would consider the most positive influence in my life alongside Robotics. As a new and upcoming competitive game, I found myself enamored with the characters, abilities, and design of the game overall. I was lucky enough to get into the closed beta and it was an incredible experience. While the game was still being prepared for launch, I found myself in the middle of a season of robotics. This year I was our build lead, and I found the iterative process of building a robot and then improving it as intoxicating as ever, but by the end of the season I had asked myself the question, “Why do I enjoy this so much?” 

            After such a positive experience in beta, I was so excited to jump into the game. The release of the game went so well, and I found myself fully engrossed in the game. With this, I found the answer to the question of why I enjoyed robotics so much, and that was because I not only loved the competition, but I loved to learn. Since Overwatch was such a unique concept at the time, I was learning so much and I realized that I loved to learn, but not only that, but I also loved improving. 

            I found myself learning a lot and improving, but I soon found myself hitting a wall. I was at this point in the top 90% of players in North America but found increasing my ranking harder than it had been. Much like League, I had found myself blaming others for my losses. At some point, however, after being stuck where I was for 3 seasons, I decided I was done blaming others. I had watched some streamers online and found positive advice about focusing on myself and not others, as I can change myself.

            This was the point where I would learn how to learn. I stopped blaming others and started a radical policy of self-improvement. Even if others were at fault in some cases, I had things I could work on even in the face of defeat. This shift in my mindset not only let me learn much faster but also improve every skill I had. I went from the top 90% to the top 1% just in the same season I had adjusted my mindset. I had also seen my skills in other games like League and World of Warcraft improve, just from my time of giving Overwatch my all. Even things like schoolwork and robotics had seemingly become easier after my experience. I had grown as a person and discovered the way I learn and improve in all things.

            So after all that, I had to choose a college. I was torn between my experiences in robotics but also my recent experience in Overwatch. I had to ask myself, would I get a traditional engineering degree or pursue game design? I found that the things I enjoyed the most about robotics were amplified and shined bright in games. The design and creativity that came from building a robot were shown in the world design and story behind games, even competitive ones like Overwatch. The environment created from competitive gaming of self-improvement and growth was far stronger than that of Robotics. Most importantly, I had found that gaming had created a space where I could cope with the struggles of the real world and that games had allowed me to prove myself and feel special. I had grown mentally.

            At this point the choice was easy. After seeing the impact that Overwatch had on my life, I discovered my purpose. I wanted to create something that would give people an environment where they could grow as people and improve themselves. I wanted to help others feel special and give people the opportunity to prove themselves. Going forward I had set my eyes on working on competitive games so that my impact in the creation of the game will one day have an impact on someone looking for that time in the spotlight. 

My Hobbies

            My main hobby is I love to play games! I love to play competitive games like League of Legends, VALORANT, and previously Overwatch. In both VALORANT and Overwatch I competed and reached the top 1% of players at the top, Diamond and Grandmaster respectively. For both of the games, I participated in teams that competed in tournaments. In Overwatch, I played at tier 3 regularly and even managed to place 56 out of 578 teams in the Overwatch: Open Division Season 3.

            Competitive games are not the only things I do and enjoy MMOs, like Lost Ark and World of Warcraft, and also story-based single-player games like Cyberpunk 2077 and Dishonored. I also love watching shows, animated or not, and have recently been captivated by shows like Arcane. Games and shows have always been inspiring because of the unique perspectives they provide and the innovation they create. That innovation and unique expression are what I dream to do as a game developer.

            No matter what I do I always am looking to improve in anything I do, whether it be robot design, game design, or even just my performance in games. I always seek to learn from both wins and losses and try to approach every situation with optimism. Everything I do I try to execute with excellence. I will one day work to create a game that allows everyone a chance to improve, learn, and make an impact like many shows and games have for me.