The purpose of writing this paper is to showcase my skills, special talents, and career desires. By explaining events from my life, I plan to give insight into who I am as a person and what I have to offer to potential employers. I will provide personal experiences, which pertain to me acquiring certain skill sets and also research about the graphic design market. My goal in this paper is to show the drive, passion, and love I have for becoming a graphic designer and artist.
To achieve this goal, I have organized my paper into four main sections. In the first section, I provide an account of four important events in my younger years: winning a drawing contest for a local church, taking art lessons with a very talented local artist in the low country, winning first prize at the Coastal Carolina State Fair, and working for a small graphics business. In the second section, I discuss my transition from high school into college with art, the skills I have attained, and my MBTI test results. My paper draws to an end with a third section that offers research of the graphic design market which is the field I chose to major in while attending college concludes with a fourth section that discusses the importance of what success means to me. I also include a resume attached after my bibliography. Before I can begin the examination of my four main sections, however, I need to provide some insight into who I am; it is to this that I now turn.
I’m a simple southern girl who was born and raised in Charleston, SC. I’ve lived in Summerville all my life; I first attended Summerville Catholic School beginning in K5 and leaving after at the end of the third grade. After I had been there for a little while, my parents asked if I would like to attend a new school, which I said yes to. We then went to tour the new school, Pinewood Preparatory School. I attended Pinewood from fourth grade all the way to twelfth grade. However, while I was attending middle school at Pinewood Preparatory, I entered a drawing competition for a Christmas card design for a local church with one of my friends. My friend Kelsey was insistent on us doing it together. So I gave in and decided to enter the contest with her. Ever since I was small, I have always had a crayon or colored pencils in my hand or some form of crafting to entertain me. Needless to say, I ended up winning the contest and the church used my design for all their Christmas cards to produce and send out to the members of the church. So, my artistic abilities started from an early age.
As time went on, I moved into high school at Pinewood and continued down an artistic path taking all the art classes I could. I went all the way up to AP Art but then decided to switch back to Art 3 because AP was just too fast paced for me. I discovered that I was really good with my art, but I was slower than the other students in AP. I was far more detail oriented & preferred taking my time. My grandma knew I loved art so much that she decided to sign me up for art lessons with one her friends Ms. Yvonne Rousseau, a local artist in Summerville, SC. She taught me basic techniques of art such as: value, color, shading, and much more. I had applied more of the knowledge of art that I learned from my mentor to my current work. My art teacher from school wanted all of her students to submit their current projects into the Coastal Carolina State Fair. She wanted to promote Pinewood’s art department and, hopefully, have us win some awards. Sufficed to say I entered in a beautiful pen and ink sunflower with a watercolor backdrop and it won first place in my age division. I was sixteen years old. It was the best feeling in the world and I remember saying to myself “Wow! I did that.”
Shortly after, my other friends’ mom asked me if I wanted to start working for her, helping her out, at her business. I decided to help her because she had a sign business and I thought it could be fun; it seemed art-related and creative. While I was working for her, I learned how to print vinyl graphics and weed them into stickers. I also learned how to apply decals to license plates, install window banners to vehicles, take customer orders and organize mass amounts of inventory. There was no drawing aspect to it at all. This was a whole different type of art and it seemed more modernized than the studio art I was used to. This type of design was computerized. It was a fun job to have but I needed to focus more on school. I decided to leave working with my friends’ mom because I was going to be graduating from high school soon and then going off to college. I wanted to get used to the new transition I was going to be making from a graduate of high school to a freshman in college.
As I was now a new Pinewood Preparatory Alumni I waited to go to Charleston Southern University in August of 2011. When I first got to there, I wanted to be a Pre-Med major because someday I wanted to become a Pediatrician due to my love of children. Time passed and I was realizing that wasn’t really for me. I then set my sights on something I enjoyed in high school: science. I decided to switch my major to Biology: Wildlife Emphasis. Near the end of my sophomore year, I again realized that wasn’t the right path for me. For the last time, I switched my major to Graphic Design with a minor in Art. Never in a million years did I think I would come back to art because near the end of my senior year of high school I stopped doing art all together. I just wasn’t in love with it as much as before. Somehow something brought me back to it and I haven’t regretted it since. At first, I had no idea what graphic design was. I thought it was just a fancy name for art, but then as I got more into it I realized it was more computer based than studio based. It was all completely new to me and I fell in love with it.
Throughout my journey I have acquired skills along the way whether it’s been through personal experiences or by employment to get to be where and who I am now. I have had jobs at Georgia Signs, LLC Custom Signs and Graphics, Superpetz, Charleston Southern University ResLife, and Charleston Southern University Office Assistant. From these jobs, I have obtained skills such as: computer proficiency, critical thinking, attention to detail, etc. After I graduate, I plan on pursuing a career in the field of Graphic Design. My father has always inspired me with the things that I want to do. He would always tell me I could do anything I wanted to if I worked hard for it. He also told me to play my strengths and go for it. He said it is very hard to find a job that people love and can say they actually enjoy going to work. I believe he is right. I’m a firm believer that good things take time and it takes the right personality for the right job in certain career fields.
To help figure out a career plan or career field is best for an individual some take the Myers-Briggs personality assessment test. This is a type indicator test, which helps the test taker to identify job families and occupations that are a good fit for their reported MBTI type (MBTI, 2015). I have taken this assessment and my results were ESFP. The types I got stand for: Extraversion, Sensing, Feeling, and Perceiving. According to my results I tested the highest in Perceiving, which meant on the bar graph that I was quite sure about my preference. I tested lowest in the other three, which meant I was less sure about those preferences. The other three poles I wasn’t as sure about meaning I tested lower in those. Based on my results I agree with what type of preferred work environment and preferred work tasks I enjoy. Some preferred work tasks I enjoy include the following: working closely with others on teams, working at tasks that can be done playfully, and providing a tangible product or service to customers (MBTI 2015). However, the preferred work environment I enjoy is that which is active and energetic, has people who have fun and enjoy their work, and has a colorful or stimulating physical environment (MBTI 2015). In my personal opinion, I chose the right field of study for my personality type.
In the spring of 2016, I will be graduating from Charleston Southern with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Graphic Design and minor in Art. While I’ve been pursuing my degree I’ve learned just how competitive the market for graphic design is. Many of my design professors have told us, the students, that it is a very competitive field. There is always someone that will be better than you, but it should not discourage you from expanding your skills and growing as an individual designer. Since I have lived in the Charleston area all of my life, I took it upon myself to research the graphic design field in my state. I wanted to know what the occupational employment and wage estimates were for the Charleston, North Charleston, and Summerville, areas. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, “ For a Graphic Designer in these areas employment is 420, median hourly wage is $18.92, mean hourly wage is $20.48, and the annual mean wage is $42,600” (“Charleston-North,” 2015). I compared these findings to that of the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics national estimates for this occupation and found that bigger city-states estimates were somewhat higher. For example, “States such as California, New York, Texas, Florida and Illinois had rates of employment, hourly mean wage, and annual mean wage” (“27-1024 Graphic,” 2015). Perhaps these states are higher in employment for designers because they are (1) for bigger states with larger cities and (2) have a higher demand for graphic designers to promote businesses, products, advertising, and much more. Regardless of these findings, I still want to become a successful graphic designer no matter where I end up after college or what offers may be presented to me.
All in all, one might ask what does success mean to me? Well, by definition, success is the accomplishment of an aim or purpose. To me everyone has his or her own set standards of what success means. For some success happens naturally, others have to work at it, and some just don’t try. Personally success doesn’t mean much to me if I am not happy. I don’t have all the answers, but success to me is if I have my heart and mind set on something then I’m going to do anything I can to make it happen. All I have to do is just believe in myself and have faith that God and my good will is going to get me through it. Everything else will fall into place. A good example from the Bible is, “I can do all things through Him who strengthens me” (New American Standard Bible, Phil. 4.13). No one but God, my family, friends, and myself have more faith in me to do or be anything I want to be.
Furthermore, I’m not quite sure where I am going yet with my degree, but I enjoy being creative and have so much passion for the work that I am able to do. It is inspiring, rewarding and a blessing that I can share my talents with people. I love having an active and energetic environment where I can be who I am expressing myself through my creativity. In my opinion life doesn’t get much better than by working hard for the job of your dreams and having a colorful or stimulating physical work environment with people who love doing the same things just as much.

Bibliography
"27-1024 Graphic Designers." U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 25 Mar. 2015. Web. 18 June 2015.
"Charleston-North Charleston-Summerville, SC - May 2014 OES Metropolitan and Nonmetropolitan Area Occupational Employment and Wage Estimates." U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 25 Mar. 2015. Web. 18 June 2015.
MBTI (2015), Assessment taken at Charleston Southern University career planning and placement office, Summer 2015.
New American Standard Bible. Anaheim: Foundation, 1997.