USC ESPORTS WRAP-UP #17 — “A Group At Home To Go To”
By: Richard Wang
Heya USC Games! Welcome back to another Esports newsletter. Today, we have an exclusive interview with the current president of the club, Andrew Zhang, a senior in Applied and Computational Mathematics and a Team Fight Tactics warrior. He’s been leading the team for two semesters now, and we’re going to take a deep dive into all the work he’s done and his experience so far.
1. As the director of USC Esports, tell us a little bit about how you got to where you are today. Where did you start? What was the journey like?
Freshman and sophomore year at USC all I kinda did was study and play video games. I never really made any friends, never really went out. By junior year, I kinda relegated myself to one of those people that would kinda just go through college to get that degree and someone who wouldn’t get that full college experience, until in one of my math classes I met one of the treasurers of USC Esports. She kinda took me into the club because she needed an apprentice and that’s when I also met the former president of USC ESports. After that, I always had a place to go after classes, I always had people to hang out with. There was an assumed camaraderie in the people in the club: Everyone was assumed to be gamers, everyone was kinda just chilling with each other, and I suddenly had a group at home to go to— someone to hang out with and get food with every night. It felt fulfilling. It felt like I was actually making an impact in something I enjoyed. It gave me the college experience I never thought I’d get to have.”
2. What does the busiest day in the life of a director at USC Esports look like?
“During the time I’ve been director, I’ve also been working two other jobs: A TA for a computer science course and a software engineering internship. I’d wake up early for classes, finish classes maybe around midday, then hold office hours and grade papers. After that, I’d check emails for anything USC Esports related or chase down our faculty advisor in person for questions. Answering questions, emails, checking discord for any questions from my staff— that takes maybe one to two hours. After that it would be homework and my internship work, and depending on how long all those things take, maybe take an all nighter or sleep three hours, get up, and do it again. That was the entire week during Conquest, pretty much.”
3. Short term or long term, what goals do you have for USC Esports? And what do you think will be your biggest obstacles coming up?
“The original intention of this organization was to provide a dedicated space and area for people who wanted to enter the Esports industry for career prep and experience. Long term, we hop to become one of those: A well supported, dedicated organization to help individuals who really want to make Esports a career. Currently, as my goal, it’s really just been about consistency. We very much took a few steps back at the beginning of last semester in terms of funding, support, recognition even, and this whole time I’ve personally tried to make it so that the organization stays afloat, and the people I work with are there to make sure that the foundations we lay today are built upon.”
