sometimes interesting

I hit a huge milestone in my career last month, one that I don't think I'll ever forget: I got my first (real) feature film credit. Why am I prefacing it with (real)? Well, technically I have an intern credit in  Spies In Disguise , Blue Sky's last film to release before it was closed. That one was definitely cool, and it was really fun to go see the film in theaters with friends while in college and have them get excited to see my name. However, I actually didn't work on that film - Blue Sky simply gives their interns a credit on whatever film comes out next after their internship. I spent that summer working on  Nimona , which as you may already know, was re-done by DNEG after Blue Sky's closure. They gave credits to all the full-time Blue Sky employees on the film, so I missed out on that. So, when  Elemental  came out in theaters on June 16th, 2023 - that was my true "real" first film credit, in the sense that I actually worked on the film! It felt ext...

  Pictured: Me on Pixar's campus in November 2020, aka before the pandemic          When I heard I would be flown out to San Francisco for a final round of interviews at Facebook, I immediately thought -- maybe I can finally visit Pixar while I'm there! For context, most of my college friends had been able to see the campus in previous years, so I felt a little left out. Of course, I also generally wanted to see the campus for myself, catch up with some good friends, and get some goodies from the merch store! So, after my interviews wrapped up, I took a ~40 minute Uber ride to Emeryville. When I was there, I talked to a recruiter a little bit about future openings, as at the time I was set to graduate soon. While I flew back to Texas, I felt like there wasn't much chance I'd be working at Pixar anytime soon, but I was glad I finally got a tour of the campus and hung out with my friends.     Little did I know! Just two months later, I'd be offered ...

During the past semester, I interviewed for software engineering internships at companies such as Microsoft, Google, Facebook, and Amazon. I learned an immense amount speaking with engineers at these companies and have a lot to say about the process and what the best way is to prepare. The bottom line is, getting a computer science job is tough, because the skills necessary are tough. Factor in the prestige of these companies, and the difficulty of the interview only rises. So, I'm going to describe what each interview process was like (to the extent that I can), and at the end, some thoughts on what I'd do better next time. I had the most interviews with Microsoft. I talked to a lady at the career fair and she reviewed my resume and asked me some questions about my previous experience. Then, the next day, Microsoft had a booth in the computer science building and I talked to another person there. A couple of weeks later, I got an email that they wanted to do an on-campus in...

I recently got an offer to intern as a technical director at Blue Sky Studios this summer, and I accepted. Working at an animation studio has been my main goal for four years now, and to finally take such a huge step in that direction is an unbelievable feeling. I can only hope this will eventually lead to a full time job in the industry, but for now I'm happy to have reached this milestone. Along the way I had so many people help me and I'm writing this to describe my journey - how I got into this position, and the things I thought helped me the most. Minor disclaimer: this is from the perspective of someone on the technical side of animation - I'm a computer science major. Some of this may still apply to the artist side but definitely not entirely. Let's start all the way back. When I was in eighth grade, getting ready to start high school, they told us we'd get the chance to take courses centered around certain career paths. We all got a brochure that listed th...