This year is summarized as difficult but worth the pain. I have made tremendous growth and am looking forward to my senior year. Some aspects have changed a lot, and some things have not changed, but that is why I am here to reflect on and talk about it.
The pillar of community has not changed for the most part, but the bonds that were a part of it have strengthened, I feel. My romantic interest and I have not had a huge argument in a while, and we communicate better than we did before. My roommate and I are slowly slipping away from each other, not because we are no longer friends but just because we are busy, I think. My friendship with the third friend is growing because we are talking more and because she is dating my roommate. It is strange how it has worked out, but I am not too bothered by it. I attempted to join an honors art fraternity, Kappa Pi, in the first semester, but the fraternity went under as soon as I joined and has not recovered since then. I have also made a real connection with a professor. He has helped me tremendously with a project that started in his class but is becoming much more than a simple one-time project. He says that this project could become a business of mine, and that excites me greatly. He has provided me with vast amounts of wisdom and urged me to keep going with it, which I am grateful for as he might have given me an obtainable dream.
For the pillar of service, the project I mentioned before fits into this position as it was created because I wanted to help mitigate a problem. The class it was crafted in was Hons 410, Lancer Launch Pad, and this project has given me something to look forward to in the future. I have created a prototype board game called Stickler for Conquest. It is a strategy party game that helps people communicate with one another. Since Covid-19, communication skills have decreased, so I decided to solve this issue by creating a game. I also wanted to create a board game that was appealing to adults that were not inappropriate. The board game is a mixture of the games called Settlers of Catan and Apples to Apples in gameplay due to the mechanics of the game. One of the more interesting aspects of the game is how customizable it is. There is no formal board for the game, as it is a board the players make together with the pieces given. The players have multiple characters they can choose to play as, and players can “craft” several different creations to attack enemies or defend themselves. The main mechanic and one I will focus on is the “event pile.”
The event pile is a card pile in the board game that can offer two types of cards, quests or disasters, and both of them have different effects that affect multiple players. The quest cards bring benefits in the form of in-game currency via completing an objective or, more commonly, answering a prompt that the game offers. Players ask each other these prompts and start a conversation, which increases social interactions between those that play. Even if they are all enemies, it is beneficial to talk to each other because all sides get something out of it. The disaster cards bring negative outcomes to everyone playing the game. The catch is that these “disasters” can be resolved by everyone working together to negate the effects. It requires cooperation between players that are fighting each other, thus increasing social interactions between everyone playing. It is, by far, one of the best things I have created, and it is still a work in progress, but I am happy with the outcome so far. I plan on entering a competition soon to help fundraise some cash to make this product a reality so that I can help people with it and make this my job.
Continuing with the community, I joined this student-run internship called Design Lab. Design Lab is an internship that allows students to work with clients from all over to create graphical pieces for them. It has an educational experience, and seeing a client with a smile on their face does feel good, even if it was a pain to make. I have been in it for two semesters and am doing it again in my senior year.
The pillar of scholarship has had a couple of updates too. I have been on the Dean’s List two times more. This achievement adds two more tallies to my goal, meaning I have 6/8 semesters completed for my GPA goal. Design Lab also placated a worry, which was job experience. It is a detail in my resume that looks good, as it gives me an edge against the competition when job searching as a college student. In exciting news, I have figured out what I want to do when I get out of Longwood. I want to make board games. I also want to make videos advertising said board games and a world of lore around them. The problem is that I am not sure I can start doing it immediately after college, but depending on how everything goes, it is possible in the future. I’ll line up a job after college in graphic design to hold it off until then, but a plan is starting to come together.