Today's Featured Biography

 
Jim Hendricks

Hi there everybody.

After high school, I began "college" almost immediately in July. Though, saying "college" in this case is a relative term. I went to the Arts Institue of Minnesota, later renamed Arts Institue International of Minnesota to "study" Computer Animation. The Arts Institute was really more of a training facility that focused more on the business side of art, rather an institute of learning which I was somewhat hoping for. I joined a year and a half program that would get me into the work place lick-a-dee split. I learned how to do some spiffy things, but wholly was not ready for the work force.

I worked for a little while, but then was accepted to an actual college, The University of Wisconsin Platteville which I started in January 2001. Instead of focusing on art, I decided to focus on my other strength from High School, Mathematics. I had forgotten a little bit over the few years, but it came right back after a few weeks.

UW Platteville's main speciality was Engineering and Physics which garnished plenty of super nerdy and geeky folk. I was a huge fan of Anime and video games, still am, so I fit right in with the university's Anime and Game clubs. Along with Math and Art, I started taking Japanese language classes to further fuel my fandom, with the eventual goal of actually going to Japan.

A couple years had passed and the Art program at UWP was remedial at best, so I began focusing much more on Math. One of the required courses with Intro to Programming, which intregued me. After finishing the class with nearly perfect grades, I had found a actual viable career that worked perfectly with my analytic skills. I took a couple more programming courses and after a semester added Computer Science as a major along-side Mathematics.

Things were going good. I was excelling at both my subjects and was elected President of my Anime club, to which I brought everyone together to make a movie. We planned, scripted, planned, acted, planned, edited and managed to finish the thing a few minutes before our premiere in March 2006. A year and a half of effort in all our spares times resulted in laughter, cheering and many quote-filled parties.

With the movie finished and all my course-work complete, I was finally ready to actually join the work force. College was almost officially done, except the little business of going to Japan. I used my final semester at Platteville to Study Abroad to Japan. I would've graduated in May 2006, but what's an extra couple of months to finish off a life goal. It was everything I had hoped for. ^_^

Over that summer, prior to Japan I got an internship working for Widen Enterprises in Madison, WI developing Web-based software for Businesses using Java and other fun technologies. After leaving the states for 3 1/2 months, I was happy to know they had a full-time position for me upon return.

So that's what I've been doing since, working and living in Madison, WI and going back to Japan each year to check up on everybody. ^_^

VIEW ALL BIOGRAPHIES