Alexander Casey

Student

A Bay College freshman currently majoring in liberal arts, Alexander Casey ultimately hopes to go into the field of video game design.

Alexander, who is on the autism spectrum, graduated from Menominee Junior/Senior High School in the spring of 2020. During his senior year of high school, a representative of Michigan Rehabilitation Services encouraged Alexander to start his college education at Bay College.

“Michigan Rehab wanted to help me out with college stuff, in order to help me eventually live on my own,” Alexander said.

He started taking classes at Bay during the fall 2020 semester.

“It’s interesting, to say the least, but overall I have been enjoying it,” Alexander said.

Alexander said he has had to adjust to the experience of taking online classes this semester, which he did not have much history with before he started studying at Bay.

“It kind of somewhat helped that I was an introvert to begin with, but that’s about it,” he said.

Fortunately, Alexander said he has received quite a bit of support from the people working at Bay.

“Most of the teachers and staff were understanding,” he said, noting his teachers have been willing to help explain concepts he struggled with.

While he is currently majoring in liberal arts, Alexander is eventually planning to focus on computer science.

“Hopefully, one of these days, (I’ll) work on video games since I do have a couple of ideas of games in mind,” he said.

According to Alexander, he had been interested in game design since second or third grade. He decided to go into programming when he got his own laptop as an eighth-grader.

So far, Alexander has not had the opportunity to take any classes related to this field at Bay. However, he is looking to change this in the near future.

“Hopefully soon I’ll be able to take the Java programming course they have,” he said.

Along with his studies, Alexander has liked getting involved with Bay’s numerous student clubs[BROKEN LINK].

“I did enjoy the amount of clubs I was able to get in,” he said.

Student organizations Alexander joined during his first semester at Bay include the Bay College Anime Club, Gaming Galaxy, and Bay’s PRIDE. Additionally, he created an organization of his own – Bayzilla.

“Basically, it’s just getting together to watch or discuss monster films,” he said of the club.

After graduating from Bay College, Alexander is interested in going to another college in the Upper Peninsula to earn a bachelor’s degree in computer science.

“My main plan is to possibly transfer over to Lake Superior State or Michigan Tech,” he said.