If you asked me a year ago, “Where do you see yourself next summer?” I would have replied, “Art Center.” Succinct and matter-of-fact. It’s crazy how quickly this year has gone by, how much I’ve learned, and how many strange and unforgettable people I’ve met. I think the key differences between these two summers have been my priorities. Last summer I had something to prove to myself, my family, and my peers. This summer I needed to take a step back to reflect and refocus my values and goals on what’s really important. It’s not about design, it’s about art. It’s not about the success, it’s about loving the journey. It’s not about me, it’s about the project. It’s not about working, it’s about happiness.
Rewind to the summer of 2015. I’m driving back and forth from Art Center at Night, sketching cars up into the middle of the night. I barely saw my family, to the point that during the final week when I ran into my sister one morning she said, “Wow this is weird I haven’t seen you at all this week.” I think that that line was a testament to who I wanted to be at that time. I wanted to crush my classmates and destroy any design assignment thrown at me, but to do so I needed to develop an absurd work ethic. Friends who know me now may be familiar with this new workaholic Andy, but it only really started last year when I decided to prove to myself and everyone around me that I could actually design for a living. I made this promise to myself after Monty Oum, an animator I was, and still am, inspired by died suddenly at 33 in February of 2015.
His words will forever be ingrained in my mind. “Can you match my resolve? If so then you will succeed.” He wrote this about his work ethic, and I printed out and pinned up that first page in my room at home and in my dorm room at Syracuse. The only decoration on my walls. I reread his writing recently and I realize now what he was actually trying to say. In his fever of working so hard he lost sight of what was really important - family. Despite being able to find absolution, he still felt immense guilt when he prioritized his work over his mother who died before he could see her one last time. In my blind, stubborn commitment to this promise, I forgot the rest of his message.
Prior to leaving for Syracuse, I was always telling people that I wasn’t sure how architecture would work out for me. If I would like it, if I wouldn’t, it was all up in the air. Deep down my heart craved to be at Art Center. That feeling was cemented into a reality I could achieve after how successfully I performed in all my classes there, but for the fall I had no better offer. Off to New York. No, not New York City. Some college town a five hours drive north-west. Syracuse was in the middle of nowhere to me, a first generation immigrant with not a single alumni from my high school attending Syracuse to ask for guidance. Before even starting architecture school, my fallback plan at Art Center seemed so appealing. Looking back on it now, Art Center was comfortable – safe even. Honestly, it was home and for some reason I was running away from home. I took a leap of faith in Syracuse, and they took a leap of faith in me. Pretty big risk to be offering a kid with ‘potential’ a spot in their top five undergraduate architecture program. What they saw in my haphazard portfolio I can only guess now, but if I hadn’t left home for Syracuse, I might still be dreaming of a day where I can be a designer. Stuck in the same safe bubble I grew up in with the same people, the same problems, and the same frustration with myself that I couldn’t live the life I always wanted to live. Thank you Syracuse, for giving a kid the chance to live his dream.
Syracuse may have given me my shot at making my dream come true, but it was my two studio professors, the school’s whole architecture program, and my classmates who really helped me fall in love with architecture. Kyle Miller created that spark and Anne Munly fanned that spark into flames. Even now I’m still trying to unpack everything they’ve taught me. During my first semester, I was so confused, trying to show off at every opportunity with as much subtlety as an F1 car being driven by a gerbil. The most important thing that came out of that semester though was that I was there to stay. After returning from winter break, Art Center was no longer home, Syracuse was. Ideas finally began to click. I was able to follow architectural discussions now, and I started to understand what was vaguely good and bad. With the work ethic I now became known for, I knew that I would have a bright future ahead of me in architecture if I kept at it at Syracuse, did my time, smashed all my projects year by year, smashed thesis, and then got hired at some great firm. Life seemed just dandy, but that was the problem. The finish line became visible. I started to feel satisfied and complacent in where I would end up if I just stayed ahead of the pack and stayed on this course. The finish line may have been in sight, but I started to slow my pace. However, one dining hall meal would change my life, though I don’t know for better or for worse yet. One question that would start to eat away at that comfort and start a new fire: “Have you ever thought about applying to Cornell?”
People ask me now if that was my plan all along and I can only laugh. At the time I had no plan, just hopes and dreams. My only plan was a Plan B to return home and grind out a living at Art Center, but I could never have guessed where Syracuse would have taken my abilities. If I told my high school counselor I would be applying to Cornell, they would have laughed at me and told me something along the lines of ‘think more practically about your safeties, Andy.’ Let me translate: yeah, yeah kid keep reasonable expectations I mean just look at your grades! I’m no genius. I’ve been getting by with my newfound work ethic and my drawing ability. I’m no genius, but I want to be learning at the place that can take me there. If it is Syracuse, so be it I will stay without regrets, but if it is anywhere else I will pack my bags in a heartbeat.
In hindsight it might be a no brainer for anyone to choose Cornell over Syracuse, but for me it was an extremely difficult decision to make. Syracuse was my new home. I loved the cold, the professors, the people, and the program. Why leave? I could nitpick and talk about how the working environment was too rowdy for me, how Syracuse the university was not the right place for me, how my two studio professors with whom I’d like to do independent studies with would both be unavailable next year, how I went into the decision being set on staying since I thought my transfer application would be withdrawn because I didn’t submit my mid-term progress report, how Cornell’s class sizes were smaller, yada yada yada. In the end I think the biggest reason I needed to leave was because I needed the same uncertainty I felt going to Syracuse. I had found a new home, and I needed to leave before I got too comfortable. During the second semester, I gradually became less passionate about architecture so much so to the point that I asked myself if this was what I really wanted to do, if the success would be this boring the next four years. I needed a new goal, one that I could achieve an hour’s drive away. I wanted to be #1 at #1, so Cornell here I come.
“Slow down,” has been my mantra for this summer. Originally I had plans this summer to do a few more Art Center classes, but that was thrown away and replaced by the plans of two dictators who have, under an iron first, kept me locked up and caged in a school in San Gabriel all summer long only allowing me outdoors to fetch them coffee. Jokes aside, Corey and Rebecca at Right Brain Academy of Art have really turned my life around. These two were my art teachers when I was younger, and I was only supposed to catch up with them and show them some work from my year at Syracuse, but in our conversations they saw a kid who was ambitious, lost, and headed down a bad road. They decided to intervene and to give me some very much needed guidance disguised as fine art training. Through a lot of frustration this summer, I think I have come out of this hyperbolic time chamber a better designer. One who is no longer a workaholic robot that aspires to something it is told is ‘success,’ but a person who aspires to be an artist. In all of this growth I’m grateful that I also had a chance to also reconnect with my family.
From birth I’ve been a giant pain in the ass both as a son and brother. I’ve caused my mom, dad, and sister so much pain and trouble over these past 19 years mostly because I thought it was them against me, never the other way around. I’m glad that I can now say that I’m closer to my family than I think I ever was. I’m happy to be around them now. I’ve only now come to realize too that I don’t think I can ever be half the person my mom and dad are. They sacrificed their interests, their aspirations, and their dreams to build a happy and successful future for me and my sister. There is nothing I can ever do to repay that pure selflessness except to try my best to make sure their efforts, their struggle, and their sacrifice has not been in vain.
My dream had always been to be able to simply make a living as a designer, but as I’ve started to grow out of that dream I needed to reevaluate what I really wanted out of my life to be happy. Now it isn’t about creating crazy designs and staying ahead of my classmates, it is about creating beautiful works of art. Now it is not about the superficial success, it is about the childhood love for the work itself that I lost somewhere in high school. Now it isn’t about what I can do to improve a project, it is about everything I can do to bring out what the project needs. Now I have a better understanding of who I am and why I make certain decisions, but the most important lesson I’ve learned this summer is about family.
“So I’ve finally a moment to gather my thoughts of the events this past summer.
I believe that the human spirit is indomitable. If you endeavor to achieve, it will happen given enough resolve. It may not be immediate, and often your greater dreams is something you will not achieve within your own lifetime. The effort you put to anything transcends yourself, for there is no futility even in death.
Can you match my resolve?
If so, then you will succeed.”
Passing, Monty Oum, 2012
Rewind to the summer of 2015. I’m driving back and forth from Art Center at Night, sketching cars up into the middle of the night. I barely saw my family, to the point that during the final week when I ran into my sister one morning she said, “Wow this is weird I haven’t seen you at all this week.” I think that that line was a testament to who I wanted to be at that time. I wanted to crush my classmates and destroy any design assignment thrown at me, but to do so I needed to develop an absurd work ethic. Friends who know me now may be familiar with this new workaholic Andy, but it only really started last year when I decided to prove to myself and everyone around me that I could actually design for a living. I made this promise to myself after Monty Oum, an animator I was, and still am, inspired by died suddenly at 33 in February of 2015.
His words will forever be ingrained in my mind. “Can you match my resolve? If so then you will succeed.” He wrote this about his work ethic, and I printed out and pinned up that first page in my room at home and in my dorm room at Syracuse. The only decoration on my walls. I reread his writing recently and I realize now what he was actually trying to say. In his fever of working so hard he lost sight of what was really important - family. Despite being able to find absolution, he still felt immense guilt when he prioritized his work over his mother who died before he could see her one last time. In my blind, stubborn commitment to this promise, I forgot the rest of his message.
Prior to leaving for Syracuse, I was always telling people that I wasn’t sure how architecture would work out for me. If I would like it, if I wouldn’t, it was all up in the air. Deep down my heart craved to be at Art Center. That feeling was cemented into a reality I could achieve after how successfully I performed in all my classes there, but for the fall I had no better offer. Off to New York. No, not New York City. Some college town a five hours drive north-west. Syracuse was in the middle of nowhere to me, a first generation immigrant with not a single alumni from my high school attending Syracuse to ask for guidance. Before even starting architecture school, my fallback plan at Art Center seemed so appealing. Looking back on it now, Art Center was comfortable – safe even. Honestly, it was home and for some reason I was running away from home. I took a leap of faith in Syracuse, and they took a leap of faith in me. Pretty big risk to be offering a kid with ‘potential’ a spot in their top five undergraduate architecture program. What they saw in my haphazard portfolio I can only guess now, but if I hadn’t left home for Syracuse, I might still be dreaming of a day where I can be a designer. Stuck in the same safe bubble I grew up in with the same people, the same problems, and the same frustration with myself that I couldn’t live the life I always wanted to live. Thank you Syracuse, for giving a kid the chance to live his dream.
Syracuse may have given me my shot at making my dream come true, but it was my two studio professors, the school’s whole architecture program, and my classmates who really helped me fall in love with architecture. Kyle Miller created that spark and Anne Munly fanned that spark into flames. Even now I’m still trying to unpack everything they’ve taught me. During my first semester, I was so confused, trying to show off at every opportunity with as much subtlety as an F1 car being driven by a gerbil. The most important thing that came out of that semester though was that I was there to stay. After returning from winter break, Art Center was no longer home, Syracuse was. Ideas finally began to click. I was able to follow architectural discussions now, and I started to understand what was vaguely good and bad. With the work ethic I now became known for, I knew that I would have a bright future ahead of me in architecture if I kept at it at Syracuse, did my time, smashed all my projects year by year, smashed thesis, and then got hired at some great firm. Life seemed just dandy, but that was the problem. The finish line became visible. I started to feel satisfied and complacent in where I would end up if I just stayed ahead of the pack and stayed on this course. The finish line may have been in sight, but I started to slow my pace. However, one dining hall meal would change my life, though I don’t know for better or for worse yet. One question that would start to eat away at that comfort and start a new fire: “Have you ever thought about applying to Cornell?”
People ask me now if that was my plan all along and I can only laugh. At the time I had no plan, just hopes and dreams. My only plan was a Plan B to return home and grind out a living at Art Center, but I could never have guessed where Syracuse would have taken my abilities. If I told my high school counselor I would be applying to Cornell, they would have laughed at me and told me something along the lines of ‘think more practically about your safeties, Andy.’ Let me translate: yeah, yeah kid keep reasonable expectations I mean just look at your grades! I’m no genius. I’ve been getting by with my newfound work ethic and my drawing ability. I’m no genius, but I want to be learning at the place that can take me there. If it is Syracuse, so be it I will stay without regrets, but if it is anywhere else I will pack my bags in a heartbeat.
In hindsight it might be a no brainer for anyone to choose Cornell over Syracuse, but for me it was an extremely difficult decision to make. Syracuse was my new home. I loved the cold, the professors, the people, and the program. Why leave? I could nitpick and talk about how the working environment was too rowdy for me, how Syracuse the university was not the right place for me, how my two studio professors with whom I’d like to do independent studies with would both be unavailable next year, how I went into the decision being set on staying since I thought my transfer application would be withdrawn because I didn’t submit my mid-term progress report, how Cornell’s class sizes were smaller, yada yada yada. In the end I think the biggest reason I needed to leave was because I needed the same uncertainty I felt going to Syracuse. I had found a new home, and I needed to leave before I got too comfortable. During the second semester, I gradually became less passionate about architecture so much so to the point that I asked myself if this was what I really wanted to do, if the success would be this boring the next four years. I needed a new goal, one that I could achieve an hour’s drive away. I wanted to be #1 at #1, so Cornell here I come.
“Slow down,” has been my mantra for this summer. Originally I had plans this summer to do a few more Art Center classes, but that was thrown away and replaced by the plans of two dictators who have, under an iron first, kept me locked up and caged in a school in San Gabriel all summer long only allowing me outdoors to fetch them coffee. Jokes aside, Corey and Rebecca at Right Brain Academy of Art have really turned my life around. These two were my art teachers when I was younger, and I was only supposed to catch up with them and show them some work from my year at Syracuse, but in our conversations they saw a kid who was ambitious, lost, and headed down a bad road. They decided to intervene and to give me some very much needed guidance disguised as fine art training. Through a lot of frustration this summer, I think I have come out of this hyperbolic time chamber a better designer. One who is no longer a workaholic robot that aspires to something it is told is ‘success,’ but a person who aspires to be an artist. In all of this growth I’m grateful that I also had a chance to also reconnect with my family.
From birth I’ve been a giant pain in the ass both as a son and brother. I’ve caused my mom, dad, and sister so much pain and trouble over these past 19 years mostly because I thought it was them against me, never the other way around. I’m glad that I can now say that I’m closer to my family than I think I ever was. I’m happy to be around them now. I’ve only now come to realize too that I don’t think I can ever be half the person my mom and dad are. They sacrificed their interests, their aspirations, and their dreams to build a happy and successful future for me and my sister. There is nothing I can ever do to repay that pure selflessness except to try my best to make sure their efforts, their struggle, and their sacrifice has not been in vain.
My dream had always been to be able to simply make a living as a designer, but as I’ve started to grow out of that dream I needed to reevaluate what I really wanted out of my life to be happy. Now it isn’t about creating crazy designs and staying ahead of my classmates, it is about creating beautiful works of art. Now it is not about the superficial success, it is about the childhood love for the work itself that I lost somewhere in high school. Now it isn’t about what I can do to improve a project, it is about everything I can do to bring out what the project needs. Now I have a better understanding of who I am and why I make certain decisions, but the most important lesson I’ve learned this summer is about family.
“So I’ve finally a moment to gather my thoughts of the events this past summer.
I believe that the human spirit is indomitable. If you endeavor to achieve, it will happen given enough resolve. It may not be immediate, and often your greater dreams is something you will not achieve within your own lifetime. The effort you put to anything transcends yourself, for there is no futility even in death.
Can you match my resolve?
If so, then you will succeed.”
Passing, Monty Oum, 2012