Honors student uses classroom lessons to achieve game development success
Last summer, Quangnhan Duong received his first monthly "five-figure payout" from Roblox, one of the world's most popular gaming platforms. A milestone few developers reach, the Citrus College engineering major said it inspired him to form an LLC and pursue a future as an entrepreneur.
"When I was completing my classwork in the spring of 2022, I realized I could weave course material with programming and game development. After countless nights of reading Lua documentation, print debugging and navigating Blender, I created a game that quickly skyrocketed to the top 500 on Roblox," he said. "In just six months, my game was played 27 million times, so I decided to start my own game development business."
Although Duong believes Citrus College has played a role in his business success, it wasn't originally part of his higher education plans. Instead, he spent his high school years working toward gaining admission to a specific institution. When things didn't work out as planned, Duong said he became discouraged and lost his sense of direction.
"By graduation, I had grown desensitized to failure and was not surprised when every other university I had applied to denied me," he said. "My mother is a Citrus College graduate, so I signed up for the honors transfer program and was accepted on academic probation before the fall 2021 semester began."
According to Duong, this is when things began to change.
"My life is fantastic now," he proclaims. "Citrus has given me the opportunity to learn more about myself and my capabilities. I have grown from my past self. At the same time, the academic freedom provided at Citrus College, as well as the understanding of my professors, has enabled me to learn outside the classroom and discover what I want to do."
One particularly beneficial experience has been an internship at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).
"Working on simulations as part of my JPL internship marked my transition from game development to engineering," he said.
After graduating from Citrus College this spring, Duong hopes to transfer to a prestigious four-year university. His ultimate goal is to pair his passion for engineering with this new interest in business.
"Creating games is not enough," he said. "I aspire to engineer something more meaningful. Citrus College has provided me with so much opportunity and growth – now I am ready to take on greater challenges."
This article originally appeared in the May 2023 edition of the Citrus View.