I'm a gamer. Ever since I was in grade school, everyone expected me to be at the top of my class and do well on every test or assignment. One time I missed a test in a class, and when I went to the class the next day, the teacher pulled me aside and asked me if it was okay if she just gave me an A on the test since it was just memorizing lines anyway. If I ever messed up on a test, people would tease me for it or be shocked, which really annoyed me. I always felt like I had no room for error. I was never really that social, but I would hang out with friends when I had spare time.
When I got to high school, things started out differently. No one knew who the smart kid was or anything like that for a while. We were all the same; just a group of kids who didn't know each other. I liked this because I didn't feel as much pressure to make zero mistakes, but I still wanted to get good grades and learn what I could. Around this time, I really started to get into computer gaming. I played a lot of online multiplayer games, mainly first person shooters like Counter Strike. They were the most fun thing I could do at the time, so I spent most of my free time gaming. I could act differently online. I wasn't as shy or quiet online as I was at school or with people I didn't know. I wasn't nervous to speak my mind because I wouldn't have to worry what the other people thought about me, since they didn't know who I was.
Though it may have hurt my grades a little bit since I preferred gaming over studying or doing homework, I still ended up with a pretty solid GPA in high school and am doing well so far at UCLA, but I still game as much as I ever have. It even helped me decide that my major would be computer science, since I love computers. When I'm playing games with friends online, I'm probably more myself than when I'm at school surrounded by people I don't know.
Why do I do what I do? Because I can still learn a lot while climbing the ranks on my servers.
Comments