This personal statement is an example of who I am written by, myself. If I were to have a literary equivalent to a self portrait, this is what it should be. A self portrait focuses mainly on the emotion and personality of the person in it, thus I shall begin with myself, who I am, and my place in our world.
My name is Kyle Wilkerson. I am an only child. I’m 18 years old and have my driver’s license. I have my own car which I am very appreciate of. My freshman year I had some kidney stones which consequently led to a kidney infection which led to a few days in the hospital in addition to missing about a month of school. Despite my hardships I still passed all my classes and squeezed by with a GPA of 3.73. I feel that because of this experience I’ve learned a lot about life and how to work through hard times. Sophomore year I ended the 2nd semester with a GPA of 4.0 which I was very proud of as I felt that I worked hard for it. During the fall semester of my junior year I caught pneumonia and missed another week or so of school. Luckily, this my senior year I have yet to encounter any illness.
As far as my plans for what to do with myself after I get out of high school, it’s still rather up in the air. I have been accepted to and plan to attend Cal Poly San Luis Obispo to major in Computer Science with some sort of concentration/minor/expertise regarding Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games. This career interests me for a few reasons. For one I play these games and I enjoy doing so. So I figure if I’m going to have to work for a living, I may as well enjoy what I do for a living. Secondly, I really do feel that it’s a way to cope with life, playing these “silly games” especially for teenagers through people in their middle to late 20’s. Some people sit down and watch some random sitcom and focus completely on the life of a fictional character. Other people play sports, or watch sports, or drink or abuse drugs… whatever hits their fancy. For me, playing an MMORPG is like living a different life as a different person, you can be whatever you want at any time. If you wanted to you could have a different personality or go by a different name. These types of games also encourage collaboration and teamwork as well. Much like in school, a group of people will get together to overcome an obstacle for the reward, in real life it could be a grade or a bonus check; or in the game it’s a long sword +4.
Though my greatest interest at present is in computer gaming. I am also interested and aware of how the use of computers permeates almost every industry at present. The possibilities for the future seem open ended to me. On another note I, like many of my generation, am greatly interested and concerned with the environment. I plan to expand my understanding of this subject further during my college years.
The future is uncertain, with all that is going on in the world and the changes that it is constantly going through. Life is hard and tedious at times, while at other times it’s satisfying and you couldn’t wish for more. If there’s been one thing that I’ve learned in 18 years of living life it’s this: Fantasy will set you free.