One Year Can Change Your Whole Life (Accepted to ArtCenter)
One year can change your whole life.
This is the story of how I went from having a full-time job as a software engineer to receiving an MFA acceptance letter from my top school, ArtCenter College of Design.
I’ve known I wanted to pursue a career in design for years but little did I know how much further I could get in one year alone. I owe much of my growth in this time to ideas from Deep Work and The 12 Week Year. Together, these ideas helped me channel my excitement, nervousness, and sporadic ideas into two clear outcomes.
- Design a kick-ass portfolio
- Complete MFA applications
Making a Change
Before I get into the how, let’s rewind to early 2021. Coming off of the collective trauma of 2020 in multiple areas of life, I knew I had to take massive action toward my dreams of a career in design. By this point, I had recognized there were ceilings to how much I could learn about design through self-study. I had taken online courses from The Futur and other resources, which helped me to recognize my skill gaps. Most importantly, Chris Do and his colleagues at The Futur exposed me to world-class design standards and this magical place called ArtCenter.
