{"id":1812,"date":"2019-01-31T12:10:30","date_gmt":"2019-01-31T18:10:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/sitc\/?p=1812"},"modified":"2019-01-31T12:10:30","modified_gmt":"2019-01-31T18:10:30","slug":"student-spotlight-donte-payne","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/sitc\/student-spotlight-donte-payne\/","title":{"rendered":"Student Spotlight: Donte&#8217; Payne"},"content":{"rendered":"<h1><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1817 alignleft\" src=\"http:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/sitc\/files\/2019\/01\/DontePicture-490x402-1-300x267.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"267\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/sitc\/files\/2019\/01\/DontePicture-490x402-1-300x267.jpg 300w, https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/sitc\/files\/2019\/01\/DontePicture-490x402-1-150x133.jpg 150w, https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/sitc\/files\/2019\/01\/DontePicture-490x402-1.jpg 406w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/>Donte&#8217; Payne (&#8217;19)<\/h1>\n<h3>Digital Entertainment and Technology<\/h3>\n<p>ACU wasn\u2019t his first choice when he was accepted, but after visiting during his senior year of high school, Donte&#8217; Payne, a senior Digital Entertainment Technology major from Killeen, Texas, knew that ACU was the college for him. Donte&#8217; loved the community and liked that the school was the perfect size for his needs. Payne said, &#8220;You aren\u2019t just another student on the roll call; the teachers are able to talk to you one on one and really get to know every student.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Donte&#8217; began his ACU career as a kinesiology major but when he learned about the Digital Entertainment Technology major, he decided to pursue his passion for animation. He is currently working on the first 3D animated film to be entered into ACU\u2019s <a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/filmfest\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Film Fest<\/a>. Animation can seem like a daunting field to enter into, but Donte&#8217; said, \u201cIt is okay to go in not knowing anything, that\u2019s what the program is for\u2026 [The professors] are here to help you learn and to help you figure out what you love.\u201d\u00a0When asked what drew him to animation Payne said, \u201cBeing able to make someone laugh and tell a story with your drawings, making an impact on people\u2019s lives &#8211; it\u2019s just amazing.\u201d<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1818 alignright\" src=\"http:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/sitc\/files\/2019\/01\/IMG_0516-300x285.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"285\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/sitc\/files\/2019\/01\/IMG_0516-300x285.jpg 300w, https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/sitc\/files\/2019\/01\/IMG_0516-150x142.jpg 150w, https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/sitc\/files\/2019\/01\/IMG_0516-768x729.jpg 768w, https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/sitc\/files\/2019\/01\/IMG_0516-490x465.jpg 490w, https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/sitc\/files\/2019\/01\/IMG_0516-1080x1025.jpg 1080w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>One of Payne&#8217;s favorite courses was a special topics course, DET 340: Game Engines, saying, \u201cIt provides you with a different aspect of what people look for in gaming \u2026 and the different perspectives towards it.\u201d He liked that the class was less of a lecture and more of a conversation between not only the professor but also his peers. Donte&#8217; remarked that some of the most enlightening conversations he has had have been with his fellow classmates.<\/p>\n<p>Since coming to ACU, Payne has been very involved on campus as well as in the department. He works for the Residential Life office, is president of the DET Club, works as a teacher\u2019s assistant for Dr. Brian Burton, and helps throw events for Gamers Guild. Donte&#8217; really enjoys all the chapel options available to the student body such as DET Chapel, Gamers Guild Chapel, and Midnight Worship. Since enrolling at ACU, Donte&#8217; believes that every year, student life on campus gets better and better.<\/p>\n<p>Donte&#8217; is set to graduate this May and is hoping to intern with Pixar but is also exploring master\u2019s degree programs for animation. Want to know more about the DET major or the School of Information Technology and Computing? Click <a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/sitc\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">here<\/a> to learn more.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Donte&#8217; Payne (&#8217;19) Digital Entertainment and Technology ACU wasn\u2019t his first choice when he was accepted, but after visiting during his senior year of high school, Donte&#8217; Payne, a senior Digital Entertainment Technology major from Killeen, Texas, knew that ACU was the college for him. Donte&#8217; loved the community and liked that the school was [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5020,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1812","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/sitc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1812","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/sitc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/sitc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/sitc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5020"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/sitc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1812"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/sitc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1812\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1819,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/sitc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1812\/revisions\/1819"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/sitc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1812"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/sitc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1812"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/sitc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1812"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}