Hello I'm Joshua Rodriguez. I am on a journey to get my Graphic Design Degree, and finally start my career as a professional Designer! To say I have been around the block a few times is an understatement. I started this Journey in after I had graduated high school I set off to Portland, Oregon to begin my studies at The Art Institute of Portland. Here I was challenged like I never expected learned from people who spent the most of their days in design agencies or working with clients with only a handful of the instructers being full-time.
I was able to complete 150 credits here towards my bachalors before the school shut down leaving me with no degree, very few ways to transfer to another school, and with $70,000 in debt. I applied for student loan forgiveness and was awarded with full loan forgiveness! This was when I decided to go back to school to achieve my origianl goal of obtaining my Graphic Design Degree, as that is where we are now!
You can see my life is a bit of a rollercoaster as this is just one hardship I was dealing with during that time and because of this I have learned to just keep putting one foot infront of the other and to keep pursuing my dreams; focusing on the good things to keep me going hence why the title of this website is Half-Full.
A little about myself is that I am extreamly busy I work two jobs working at a commercial printer; as well as The Torch at LCC. Do to this I struggle with time management a lot and struggle to find the time to do everything that I feel that I need to do. Currently on top of my school projects that I am doing, I am currently working on two freelance projects, a new website for The Torch; as well as a graphic standards for them. While working 50+ hours a week and being a full time student. I know I am doing a lot and things seem absolutly crazy, but I beleive that it will all be worth it in the end.
Projects
Up top you would find links to my projects that'll be relevent once they're complete :)