<p>Prompt: Describe the world you come from – for example, your family, community or school – and tell us how your world has shaped your dreams and aspirations.</p>
<pre><code>“When I grow up I want to be a video game designer!” I always proclaimed this as a child with a toothless grin. I was never met with discouragement or opposition when I said this as a child, but what changed? Suddenly my friends were dropping their previous goals of professional basketball player and astronaut to take on the more realistic career of accounting or doctor. Was I supposed to do the same?
“You need to be the engineering degree,” my dad tells me in his broken English. I have always been told that I am a copy of my father, frankly I don’t see it, his mustache is quite large and my upper lip bears no fruit. My dad was born in Karachi, Pakistan and came to America with nothing to give my siblings and me a better future—they knew first hand what it felt like to be in poverty. My dad gave up his dream of becoming an aerospace engineer in order to support me and give me a better future. Because of me, my dad did not have money for college and did not get the opportunity to pursue his dream. I have always had a deep admiration for the things that my dad has done in order to make my life better than his, and have also felt like I owed him a debt. Growing up, I was always told that I was going to do great things, like every child was. My future was practically decided for me, I was to go to a prestigious college and pursue a degree in engineering, and work as an engineer for the rest of my days. I was to live out my father’s dream of becoming an engineer, but I had different plans and different passions for myself. I wanted to be different than the rest of my friends. I wanted to design video games.
I eagerly awaited high school, I could not wait to enroll in courses that would allow me to learn more about the subject I have come to love, but I found…nothing. The opposition I was met with when revealing my passion was very unsettling, I didn’t understand why people were scoffing and looking at me differently. To everyone else video games were a hobby; a pastime, something to do when you were bored…but they were more to me. Video games allowed me to escape the crushing pressures of school, and life, they brought joy to me and at the same time intrigued me. I learned all about how things inside gaming consoles worked, and how the tiny pieces of plastic with a green chip inside it made Mario appear on my television. The discouragement from my parents and my community drove me to work extremely hard to show my parents and everyone that no only did I love working with video games, I had a gift for it. I looked at frame data, learned all about computer science and electrical engineering through video games, my desk was suddenly filled with various old circuit boards of video games that I tried to change and make my own. My computer screen displayed only lines of code and text as I chopped, clipped, and edited things in games I grew up with to try and make them a new experience. The joy I felt watching others enjoy something I created and something that I enjoy was a feeling nothing else could match.
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<p>I feel like I need a better conclusion, any tips/ideas would be greatly appreciated. Thank you and Happy Thanksgiving!</p>