Written by: Sunabi Pokharel - 25018, Grade IX
Posted on: 14 February, 2022
“I was not always this confident like I am right now.”, he began speaking in front of the huge crowd, carrying an award in his left hand. “Neither had I expected that one day, I’d be standing here in front of all of you guys sharing the experience of my life and how I gained success. Most of you guys ask me how I got interested in the IT sector and to be honest it was games that made me realize it. Most of the people I’ve met have said that they were a curious child but me, nope. I was never a curious kid. And that was what made me really know nothing about the outer world. Not knowing about the outer world didn’t really affect me when I was in middle school. But even after I entered high school; nothing interested me. There was not a single thing except games that would make me happy or that would fascinate me. I was in the senior year of my high school life and that was when lots of things struck my mind. Realizations hit me hard. I thought that till now, I didn’t have to do anything on my own. I was dependent on my parents but from now on, life wouldn’t be the same anymore. I had to be independent, independent in many aspects of life. All the decisions I had made yet were solely based on the opinion of my parents. But then, I was about to go to Bachelors. I didn’t know what I wanted to be in my life. I didn’t know what I would study after I reached Bachelors. I knew nothing about my future. I had no self-decision-making skills. I didn’t know where and how to figure out what I wanted to do and become. My mother had told me since I was a small boy that I needed to get involved in lots of activities and then focus on what activity interested me the most. She had always encouraged me to pursue my career based on my hobbies. But then when I looked at myself at that point of time, I only saw games, games, and games. I realized that I was already addicted to games badly, and I had no way out. I tried to get involved in reading books and painting pictures but whenever I was reading or painting, there was only one thing that roamed in my mind and that was games. I knew that it was games that were destroying my life, my career, and my studies. But nothing could help it. There was one point of time in my life where I thought that I would just play games all day and all night. I wasn’t even caring that I was destroying myself both mentally and socially. Had that one point of realization not come inside my mind, I think that I, Andrew Armstrong, wouldn't have been standing in front of such a huge mass today. One day as I was playing a mobile game, a curiosity struck my mind. I started questioning myself how did the character in the game move how I wanted it to move? How is the gun shooting the person I am aiming to? That was the first thing that had made me curious in my entire life. I decided I would research about it. I had no other sources except Google where I could figure out my answer, so I googled it. It was then that I found out that it was all due to the codes written by the developer. I had been studying coding in my school, but I never thought that using it we could create such good games. After that, I decided that I would focus more on coding and stuff related to web development. I didn’t completely stop playing games though. But I managed my time for coding and playing games. I planned to study IT for Bachelor, and I grew up to pursue my career in this field. I never really thought that the game I had designed would be so famous around the whole world. As I am standing here before all, I would like to say a huge thank you to my mother who encouraged me to pursue my career based on the hobbies I enjoyed. Also, I’d like to suggest all young adults and teens not to spend too much time playing games. I have regretted a lot and I don’t want others to do so too. Be curious, young ones. That’s going to help you a lot in the future. Once again, a huge thank you to my team and my friends and family who supported me to design such a huge game because of which I could win the award of “The best game developer of the year”.”, he said and walked towards his seat. His family looked very proud and that was the moment when Andrew knew that he had truly won.
