Avani Jain

Humans of YJA: March 16th, 2021

“My goal was to work for Nintendo in Japan, but when I was trying to be more realistic about it, I realized I should know the language. So I’ve been teaching myself Japanese for the past couple of years. Actually, when I was in high school, I studied abroad in Japan, and that kind of confirmed this interest I had in their culture and language. I think the way Japanese culture approaches things is very open-minded, and that’s taught me to adopt that same sort of mentality.

When I was younger, I played the piano, painted, and played video games. I always needed that sort of creative expression, but I never really considered it a career choice. It was always just like, ‘these are my hobbies, what I enjoy doing.’ Then, when I was in college, I was so unhappy doing engineering. I had to ask myself, what is it that makes me happy? And through a lot of self-reflection, I realized that doing something creative makes me extremely happy. And it’s something I’m good at — so I decided to explore that path.

But it wasn’t an easy decision. At the time, I didn’t know anyone in a creative field, and my parents didn’t either. There was basically no one in our community that was in entertainment, like a female who “made it.” So I was kind of venturing into this field, without knowing anything. And I didn’t know if I would achieve any success, you know, so that part was extremely terrifying. But, with a 3D art program and my artistic talents, one thing led to the next and I got into video games. I’ve actually been working in the game development industry for a little over a year and a half now as a part of Treyarch & Activision, where we just released Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War.

This journey has motivated me to join Women in Games as an ambassador. I want to create a safe space for South Asian women, and hopefully inspire other women to join this field — because representation absolutely matters to me, and no one should have to go through life constantly doubting themselves with no one to look up to.

So while it definitely was not easy, I’m grateful for these experiences because they’ve helped me understand who I am and what path I want to take.”

— #HumansOfYJA, 5: Avani Jain

The thoughts and opinions expressed in this post belong solely to the individual highlighted in this story. To learn more about this project, visit yja.org/humans.