Dylan Emerson

Colorado Springs, CO 80911

emersonds2868@gmail.com
(307) 640-3144 (Cell)

Life is like a can of paint: a culmination of parts and pieces that evolves as more
parts and pieces are added. Growing up, I never knew that mixing paint would occupy
a significant portion of my life, nor did I think that it would become the best analogy for
life as I’ve experienced it.

My favorite color has always been blue, yet I could never describe the blue that I see in
my head for the longest time. It’s not royal blue, because that’s too blue and doesn’t mesh
well with a lot of colors. The blue I see in my head is closer to teal or turquoise, but teal
and turquoise have more green than my blue. The closest representation I’ve found is
cerulean, but how do you explain the color cerulean as your favorite color to someone
who has no experience with color beyond the primaries and secondaries we all learned in
elementary school? Little did I know, I’ve been mixing parts and pieces in my head to
create ever since I was little, attempting to explain my favorite color.

I took my first programming class during my Freshman year of high school, where I
learned how to make simple applications in Visual Basic. This was a significant
milestone in my life that was much more impactful than I initially expected. Visual Basic
is an Object-Oriented Language, which means that I can create an application, put objects
like buttons into it, and create specific code for these objects to optimize my application.
In class, we would make simple forms, such as surveys or trivia games. These simple
forms made me fall in love with programming and putting parts together to make a whole
product. By myself, I created my own password vault, a German trivia game for a project
in high school, and even an application that could calculate how much money I would
need for certain expenses in the video games I used to play.

I played a lot of video games growing up: Super Mario 64, Call of Duty, Tony Hawk’s
Pro Skater, and a number of other games across a few different consoles. Playing video
games became an obsession of mine, and as soon as I learned what programming was and
I got a glimpse of how games were made, I knew what I wanted to do when I grew up.
Ever since my first programming class, I’ve taken strides to learn all about creating
games and have since graduated with a Bachelor of Innovation degree in Game Design
and Development.

Now, here I am. Although I currently work at Lowe’s and have been mixing paint for
three years, I’m much more than the average retail associate. I’ve evolved from making
basic password managers to creating real games, with a passion that derived from playing
my first video game as a child. Gathering my ingredients as I’ve grown, I’ve mixed up a
life and future I’m happy with, just like the paint I mix every day. One day, I look
forward to a future where I can make games to provide the ingredients for people all over
to mix up their own futures.

Innovation
Being a graduate from the University of Colorado Colorado Springs (UCCS), I have

gained the unique experience of going through their one-of-a-kind degree program, the Bachelor

of Innovation. UCCS is the only higher education institution that offers this degree program, and

with this reputation, this degree has been shaped to help individuals like myself learn to innovate

in all walks of life. In my case, I majored in Game Design and Development, and this program

has shown me new ways to think outside of the box and enable my creativity to make an impact.

After all, innovation is “the transformation of ideas into impact.”

Throughout my years at UCCS, I have had to participate in several teams that worked

with clients to help them accomplish some kind of goal by the end of the semester. Oftentimes,

this involved innovating unique ways a client could sell or market their product. One of my

favorite success stories is of my client Kathleen Burns of Top Students/Top Parents. Kathleen

Burns is an 80 year-old woman who taught students for twenty years before creating a nonprofit

and writing books to help young parents, but she had one problem: how can she advertise a
book? With my team, we did plenty of research into marketing a book, as well as areas of

advertising other authors have not looked towards. We ended up getting Kathleen Burns on the

local news that broadcasts all over Colorado! This was very exciting for both my client and my

team, as it put Kathleen Burns in the public eye and helped her sell her mission in a unique way

not many authors have tried. I could not have done this by myself, and I owe this success to my

team and the experiences I have gained through the Bachelor of Innovation.

The Bachelor of Innovation program has taught me a lot about myself, such as my

strengths and weaknesses. One of my strengths is my ability to work cohesively in any team. Of

course, most people have worked on teams at some point in their lives, such as high school group

projects, but these teams are typically one-sided and not as productive as they could be. Working

on innovation teams for real world clients has taught me how to be a better team member and put

my best foot forward, as well as hold other team members accountable when they are not

carrying their weight. This means that the teams I am on are often much more productive and

produce higher quality work. With that being said, one of my weaknesses is being an inefficient

team leader. In my experience being a team lead, I have had difficulties planning agendas and

timelines; if my team works ahead of schedule, I am not always prepared to compensate for that.

I have been working to improve on this, though, and my experience as a team lead in my last

innovation team has greatly improved my ability to not only create work and timelines, but to

communicate with a client, making sure my team and I understand their vision and expectations.

With my experience at UCCS, I have found a new hope that I can be successful. As a

Game Design and Development major, I came to the realization that the game development

industry is a very hard industry to get in; a good position can require ten years of experience. But

the Bachelor of Innovation has taught me how to be competitive and look at problems from new
angles. I have been building my portfolio using my own creativity with hopes that a game

development company will take interest in what I can bring to the table. Unfortunately, a

developing and diverse portfolio may not be sufficient to grant me a pathway to the career of my

dreams; this would scare me if it were not for the fact that innovation has taught me to think

outside of the box and use my skill sets in new areas. As a game design major, I am learning

many skills that strengthen my skills as a programmer that allow me to get a unique perspective

on problems and how to solve them. This gives me hope that even if I cannot make it into a game

development company, I will be okay. I can transfer my game design skills to any number of

other computer science careers and still be just as successful - if not more. In this way, my

formative years at UCCS have given me hope.

I consider myself lucky to have been able to learn and grow through the Bachelor of

Innovation program. It has taught me many unique skills I can apply to many areas of my life.

My creative side has been developed to be more innovative, transforming my ideas to be much

more meaningful and impactful; I have worked on several innovation teams that have made me a

more effective and cohesive team member; and I know how to come to terms with my

weaknesses and take the steps to improve them. Because of my experience at UCCS in their

Bachelor of Innovation program, I can use innovation in my future opportunities to solve any

problems that come my way.

Education
Bachelor of Innovation in Game Design & Development, May 2022 - University of Colorado

Colorado Springs, Colorado Springs, CO.

High School Graduate, May 2018 - Mesa Ridge High School, Colorado Springs, CO.
Academic Experience
Bachelor of Innovation Courses
ENTP 1000, Intro to Entrepreneurship, Fall 2018.
INOV 1010, The Innovation Process, Spring 2019.
BLAW 2010, Business & Intellectual Property Law, Fall 2019.
INOV 2010, Innovation Team: Analyze and Report, Spring 2020.
⎼ Wispirian, LLC.
⎼ Ann Easton
⎼ Assist client with creating and maintaining a website for her company, Wispirian;
setting up Shopify service for the website, and aid with setting up financial
accounts.
⎼ Successfully set up the website backend and provided the client with website
elements designed by the team to be used on the website, of which only the client
had access to edit.
INOV 2100, Technical Writing, Proposals, & Presentations, Spring 2020.
INOV 3010, Innovation Team: Research and Execute, Fall 2020.
⎼ Industrial Design + Consulting, LLC.
⎼ Jim Robertson
⎼ Assist client in drafting a patent for his invention and researching how to get the
patent through the application process.
⎼ Successfully drafted a complete patent for the client to use to patent and license
his invention.
INOV 4010, Innovation Team: Design and Lead, Spring 2021.
⎼ Top Students, Top Parents
⎼ Kathleen Burns
⎼ Research marketing tactics to cultivate a successful book release, as well as find
other outlets for the book, such as incorporating it into university curricula,
⎼ Successfully employed marketing strategies like social media posting, word-of-
mouth, and news coverage to ensure a successful book release.
ENTP 4500, Entrepreneurship and Strategy, Fall 2021.
Game Design & Development Courses
 GDD 1100, Introduction to Game Development, Fall 2018.
GDD 1200, Introductory Programming for Game Developers, Spring 2019.
GDD 2100, Game Design for Diverse Populations, Fall 2019.
GDD 2150, Fundamental Game Design Concepts, Spring 2020.
GDD 3000, 3D Modeling & Animation, Spring 2020.
GDD 2200, Object-Oriented Analysis, Design, and Implementation, Fall 2020.
CS 3350, Team-Based Game Production, Fall 2020.
GDD 3200, Team-Based Game Test & Deploy, Spring 2021.
CS 2250, Advanced Data Structures in C++, Spring 2021.
GDD 3600, Developing Serious Games, Spring 2021.
GDD 3000, 2D Animation, Fall 2021.
GDD 3100, User Interface Design, Fall 2021.
Other Courses
GPS 1010, Engineering Odyssey, Fall 2018.
MATH 1350,Calculus I, Fall 2018.
MUS 1010, Music Theory I, Fall 2018.
PES 1110, General Physics I - Calculus Based, Spring 2019.
PES 1160, Advanced Physics Lab I - Calculus Based, Spring 2019.
VA 1010, Beginning Studio-2D, Spring 2019.
CS 2300, Computational Linear Algebra, Fall 2019.
PSY 1000, General Psychology, Fall 2019.
BIOL 1000, Biology in the Modern World, Spring 2020.
MGMT 3900, Person/Team Creativity, Fall 2020.
PES 1000, Physics in Everyday Life, Fall 2020.
COMM 3440, Organizational Leadership, Spring 2021.
PORT 3000, Writing Portfolio Assessment, Fall 2021.

Work Experience
Paint Department Customer Service Associate, July 2018 to present - Lowe's Home
Improvement.
Key Areas of Competency
Programming Languages
C#
C++
Visual Basic
GML
Game Engines
Unity
GameMaker Studio
Creative Programs
Aseprite
Audacity
Autodesk Maya
FL Studio
Inkscape
MuseScore 3
Photoshop
Pro Tools
Vegas Pro 14

Community Involvement
Marching Band, 2014, South High School, Cheyenne, WY.
Marching Band, 2015 to 2018, Mesa Ridge High School, Colorado Springs, CO.
Volunteer Tree Planter, 2017, Colorado Springs, CO.

Honors/Awards
Chancellor’s Award, UCCS, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021.
Dean’s List, UCCS, Spring 2020.
President’s List, UCCS, Fall 2018, Spring 2019, Fall 2020, Spring 2021.
References
Doyle, Alison. “Curriculum Vitae (CV) Samples, Templates, and Writing Tips.” The Balance
Careers, 20 Mar. 2021, www.thebalancecareers.com/cv-samples-and-writing-tips-
2060349.