Winter Blog #9

“Discuss a moment from your experience when you feel a single decision changed the overall course of your career so far. This can be as recent or as far in the past as you feel is relevant, but really focus on a decision that YOU MADE, and not something that happened TO you. Additionally, please expound on whether this decision involved your passion, ignited your passion in something new, or is related to some other aspect of your life.

It’s weird to reflect on this today, as a year ago today was when I realized the seriousness of COVID-19 and went into a quarantine that I expected would last a few months. I won’t dwell on the pandemic, because I want to write about a decision I made, and not about what “happened to me” and so many other people when the quarantine started, but it helps lead me to the decision I made, so: I got laid off.

Before the pandemic, I was convinced that I could make it designing in the theatre industry. I feel like I still could, but when all the theaters shut down last March, and I lost all of my freelance prospectives and my full-time gig working in theatre admin, I couldn’t help but start to question things. I honestly, after a few months of reflection, I think I was finally realizing how hard of a path I had set myself on. I knew I wanted to be a designer, but I wondered if there are more stable, lucrative, and most importantly, relevant directions that I could head in.

My decision to apply to the Creative Academy happened very quickly. I knew that I wanted to further my design education and expand my options, and I also knew that there were a lot of technical skills standing between me and the career that I hope to have in design. As soon as I found SCCA’s website and studied the curriculum, I knew what I needed to do, and it’s reassuring everyday that so many of my peers made similar decisions or changed courses to be here, and that we’re all here at this time.