FEATURE
Expectation vs. Reality WRITTEN BY JEANIE LO ILLUSTRATED BY HENGGUANG LI
Y
ou enrolled at SCAD expecting a summer internship at Pixar or DreamWorks, not working as a barista in your local Starbucks. You think you’ll score a part-time job with your 4.0 GPA, but the company gave the position to your best friend. You produce your best work in class, but the teacher gives you a C when you expect an A. Welcome to reality, where dreams are dashed and hearts are broken. This is the reality — not our expectations. There are several layers to expectations. We expect ourselves to be incredibly talented and highly qualified, but reality proves otherwise. We hope the world will reward us for our hard work, but it responds with rejections. We think the translation of expectations into reality will make us happy — except when it doesn’t. Let’s unpack this starting from our expectations of ourselves. More often than not, our perceptions of ourselves don’t match up with who we are in reality. We believe we are gifted in unusual ways — that we are different, unique and special. We think we are excellent draftsmen and that our concepts are profound. Yet, although we might be talented, we just aren’t as great as we think.
SCAN MAGAZINE // FALL 2018