Introducing: Ranup Katwal.  

Ranup is a student at Georgia State Perimeter College whose family moved to the United States about ten years ago. Since the beginning of his academic journey, Ranup’s passion has been a career in Computer Science.  

While talking about our academic selves, I discovered that we have a few things in common that connect us. First, we are both in the same English class, which is a given similarity. Second, Ranup is a first-generation college student; and so am I. In the past, Ranup struggled with regularly making good grades, and frequently found it easier to meet the mark at the average point and stop there. After taking a step back and reflecting on his performance in high school, Ranup found that continuing his education would lead him to a field he would find passion in, unlike school had given him in the past.  

Education is a journey that leads to larger opportunities, like Ranup discovering that developing open-world games, rather than only playing them, would be the right career path he would enjoy partaking in. From what I learned while meeting with Ranup, open-world games offer endless opportunities for its players to enjoy. From an introspective standpoint, our experiences and academic selves push us onward to larger goals, similarly to the hypothetical characters in the games Ranup wishes to develop in the future.