Gonzalo just started his ICAD internship at Sony Pictures Imageworks.

Two years ago he was a recent grad with previous animation experience in Peru, sitting in a cohort at Alpha Chromatica, pushing himself to make shots that were more technically challenging and something he could be proud of.

Yesterday he sent me a photo, standing beside the Sony logo. A company that has produced some of the most iconic movies of our generation.

I hope he keeps coming back to this photo, because it's proof of something specific, not something universal.

He had a demo reel when he started, but he decided to build a new one anyway, piece by piece, inside my program. He wrote about the progress on his own blog, which we shared numerous times on LinkedIn.

He took our feedback and kept going. He kept applying after rejections that would have pushed most people out of the industry entirely.

Ten months after finishing the program, Sony said yes.

Most schools will sell you this story to get you to enroll. I won't do that. The industry today is a much tougher place to break into than it was when I moved to Canada fifteen years ago, and I'm not going to pretend this outcome is waiting for everyone who signs up.

What I can tell you is what worked for him: developing real skills, listening to honest feedback, and having enough persistence to survive the gap between finishing training and getting hired. That gap is real. He walked through it anyway.

Congratulations, Gonzalo. This one's yours.