One of the great things about persistence is that when it pays off, you get to move forward. One of the not-so-great things about it is the uncertainty that it will. Sometimes persistence aids growth, and sometimes it stunts growth.
Starting Job #5 (Moving Forward from Job #2)
After 3 and a half years, I am leaving my job as a museum gallery attendant. I am starting a new job at a clothing chain. This was a scary move for me because I am so used to the museum. Consequently, it feels like I am completely starting over.
It got to a point where I needed to look for something new. Unfortunately, it is easy to become comfortable with a stale job when there are too many obstacles in the way of finding something else.
Character Modeling
I retook my character modeling course in the summer of 2025. After a lot of dedication, I clawed my way to a B.
Here are some of my approved video game models!
Below are some facial sculpts approved by my professor!
Below are some of my unapproved models that I think were pretty close to earning the professor’s approval if I had submitted them before the summer ended.
I endured the cycles of improving these models, driving myself insane in the process. It didn’t help that after the summer had ended, I stopped receiving feedback after each iteration of each model. I had to perceive that silence as a “do it again.”
To Quit?
In terms of my job, I knew that it wasn’t a good idea to quit until I had found something else. I had actually been curious about finding a new job for the past year but going through the trouble while also being a graduate student did not seem worth it.
I thought that it was better for the long run to stay close to campus. Unfortunately, I do not have a work study, so I cannot work at most of the on-campus jobs. I do have experience as a graduate assistant, but those individual opportunities only lasted for eight weeks at a time. If no one needed an assistant for a term, I didn’t have a job and didn’t get paid.
I am at the age where my father’s medical insurance cannot cover me anymore. If I needed a doctor’s appointment, I needed my own insurance, which meant that I needed my own job. Hence, I had to stay at the museum.
In terms of my education, I think that it is important to stick to goals. The only way to get better is to practice. I am sure that this was my professor’s line of thought: “if it’s important to you, you’ll keep practicing and improving.” My professor told me that it is important that a game artist has exposure to multiple specialties. As a result, instead of getting a B after the summer ended, I worked on this independent study long afterward. The competitive part of me didn’t want to settle for a B, and it didn’t help that my professor told me that they wanted me to get an A.
At the time, it seemed simple: just show dedication and keep submitting. The professor will see that you’re improving, and you’ll get to move forward. This will feel so much better once you’ve stuck around and earned that A.
But now I see that some things are not worth sticking around for.
No, To Move Forward
I eventually realized that staying at this job just did not feel right anymore. As a result, I sent out multiple job applications at once, and for some reason, a hiring manager reached back out for an interview. Before I knew it, I gave my two weeks’ notice. It was official: I was starting a new job. I was moving on to something new after the old position didn’t satisfy me anymore.
In terms of my education, the professor wanting me to get an A sounded encouraging, until I had to face the fact that repeatedly sending these updates with no response long after the class had ended again took time away from my specialty.
Ultimately, my specialty is 3D environments, not characters. When I put aside my pride, I realized how much I actually didn’t care for making character models, especially for a professor who wasn’t giving me any more feedback. Sometimes professors give extensions for students to complete their work even after the retaken class ends, but evidently, not this one. Because the professor wanted me to have an A instead of a B, they still left my grade as ‘incomplete.’ But because they weren’t as invested anymore in communicating with me on how to get that A, I realized that I had to settle for the B. The professor was focused on new classes with different students. On top of that, pursuing the A was taking time away from my upcoming projects.
I had to realize that this A wasn’t a real priority anymore, so I could either drive myself crazy and never get beyond that ‘incomplete,’ or accept the B to move forward with my academics and portfolio.
Sometimes, you need to give up what you know will give you short-term satisfaction if it is taking away from your long-term fulfillment. That’s not always easy to do, especially when these two separate things seem to go hand-in-hand.
In the moment, it might not feel right to walk away from a project when it feels incomplete. It might not feel right to walk away from a current job because it’s comfortable in the meantime. But when you have worked at that project or job for long enough, if you feel like you’ve had enough, you have.
How you feel will impact how you work. I didn’t like my job anymore, so I increasingly struggled to get to work on time, which my supervisors definitely did not appreciate. I didn’t like repeatedly submitted character model updates with no responses, so I stopped practicing as much. Ultimately, I had to accept that I’d had enough.
Now, I am entirely focused on creating 3D environment assets for my portfolio and capstone. I am also working in a different environment. As a result, I now see that my hesitance to quit turned out to be fear of uncertainty. Now, I am just happy that I get to move forward.
