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Meet Trisha Wong, the 2024 recipient of the Cody Sawatsky Memorial Award in Gaming
Trisha Wong is a SIAT student pursuing a Bachelor of Arts with a concentration in media arts. She was recently presented with the Cody Sawatsky Memorial Award in Gaming.
Throughout her childhood, Trisha Wong had always been interested in art, writing, and creativity.
She originally began university planning to pursue a major in computer science with the goal of becoming a programmer while supporting her creative hobbies on the side.
“I really quickly realized that it wasn’t going to work out, because I didn’t care at all about what I was doing,” says Trisha.
Early on in her university studies, Trisha decided that she wanted to find a major where she could continue to develop her tech skills while being able to express her creativity and, in her research, discovered SIAT.
On a campus visit, Trisha met students working on cosplay props for an IAT project and knew SIAT was the place for her.
“Something clicked in me right then and there, and I knew this was the perfect program for me,” she says. “Transferring into SIAT was genuinely one of the most life-changingly best decisions I’ve ever made in my life, and I only wish I had done it sooner.”
Trisha is the 2024 recipient of the Cody Sawatsky Memorial Award in Gaming, an award that recognizes a SIAT student who has successfully completed course work in gaming and has demonstrated outstanding project work within the completed course work. The award is presented in memory of Cody Sawatsky, an engaged and driven SIAT alumnus who was very successful as a video game producer and designer in Vancouver. Cody passed away in 2016.
“Animation, video games, and everything in that sphere were what I grew up my whole life obsessed with,” says Trisha, but before starting her studies at SIAT, she was not sure that she could make a career out of these interests.
Being nominated for the Cody Sawatsky Memorial Award in Gaming has given Trisha the validation that all her hard work and choices along the way have been worth it.
“It gave me the hope to dare to dream,” says Trisha. “Thank you so much to the Sawatsky family for giving me this chance, honour, and privilege. My journey has been long (and filled with doubt—thanks, impostor syndrome!), and the crunch arduous, but support and recognition like this makes everything worth it.”