Blog - Summer Camp: Next Best Thing to an Internship
Saturday, February 16, 2008Brenda wrote on her blog recently an entry on her thoughts on resume writing.
In one section she wrote this:
Have no relevant experience? Spend your summers trying to get some. One possibility is to work at summer camps. Seriously. Many of these camps offer game design/art/programming programs for the kids. If you can’t get an internship, it’s certainly a step up from Clerk.
It just so happens that that has been my experience. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if I was the origin of that paragraph, given as I certainly have mentioned to her often the benefits of my gig with Emagination's game design camp.
So, for everyone else's benefit, here's why working at a Summer Camp for game development (or related field) is a great opportunity for students looking to get into the game industry:
- First of all, it's something you can put under "Relevant Work Experience." An actual job, in a related area.
- Secondly, I've occasionally enjoyed reaping the benefits of having a title that's not just "student". Of course, if you're looking for a job, this isn't immediately helpful. If you're actively hunting for a job it is likely better to make what title you're hoping for more apparent. But in my case, I'm not. I've still got at least another year of school left.
What it is good for, however, is networking in the long term, or in other words establishing connections with people well before you may need a job from them. In this sense, using my title of "Game Development Instructor" is sometimes useful. It can provide some interesting and more memorable conversations than your average student, and I can ask questions on behalf of the company I work for. Although developers are often looking out for new employees, they also are often looking out for new clients and partnerships and so I can provide a slightly different dynamic when speaking as an employee. Asking questions on behalf of my company increases my value as an employee, which looks good to, well, everyone. It strengthens my reputation with Emagination, which will be good for using them as a reference in the future! - Nothing helps solidify what you have learned in your own education than having to teach it to someone else!
- I got to see a lot of little game projects get put together over the course of my job.
When you're working on a team, you only get to see how things happened on your project.
As an instructor, I got to watch over a handful of teams, and watch how everything fell into place, or fell apart. Team dynamics in action. Many of the students were working on their first ever game, and it's interesting to see them make the same mistakes I did. For the returning students, you get to see them advance. In short, although you're not directly making any of the games, you get to see quite a few games get made, and that's somewhat valuable in itself. - And the biggie, at least for me:
This may not apply to all camps, but at least for the one I worked at, it was an amazing networking opportunity for future careers, as industry people were brought in as guest lecturers for our students, and one developer even allows us to bring our students on a tour through their studio. Sure, this is a great opportunity for the kids, yes, but for the instructors it's just as valuable. Even if the work didn't involve actually developing a title, I've still technically worked with some very impressive people. And, every year I return is repeat contact, and I'll become more familiar to them.
I stumbled into my summer camp gig quite randomly, while desperately looking for (and failing to find) an internship for last summer. In retrospect, I can see that I was probably not even ready for an internship then, and it's no wonder why I couldn't find an internship opportunity.
Finding Emagination really was, however, the next best thing. I am certainly glad I did it. posted by Brian Shurtleff @ 12:04 PM
3 Comments:
Jesse B said...
Hey thanks Brian, that's actually a very good idea.
A job like that could definitely be used as relevant experience on a resume. Did you find that getting hired there was difficult?
Brian Shurtleff said...
Hey Jesse!
I'm ironically in class with you right now, but I'll write my answer down here anyway, in case it might be useful to anyone else.
I can't speak for all camps, but for the one I worked for, It wasn't too difficult, I thought.
They do tend to hire college students. Although that's for all their camps and I think their standards are a bit higher for their game design specific camp, but of the instructors for that, at least most of us were still students.
Two points though:
1.) I only found their ad very late, when I was in a last minute internship search right before the summer. That nearly cost me the job because the final paperwork only just got into them just in time.
I notice that a lot of places are looking for interns and such at the moment, so really, start your search for your summer plans now.
2.) They did scare me at first during the interview because they said they were looking for people with industry experience (and good for them) and had employees in the past with some (including one of my bosses).
However, if you can talk the talk about what you know about design, and talk about games you've designed, like in class (I talked mostly about my project from Applied), well, that seemed to work well enough for me.
Also, having a wide skill set is good for them, whereas it might not be in a real industry gig: I ended up teaching 3DSMax, Photoshop, Audacity, AND game design. At the camp, the instructors all pooled their collective knowledge and determined who would teach what, so the more you can teach, the more valuable you are. Fortunately, you already know 3DSMax and Photoshop and design thanks to SCAD.
If you are interested in specifically the company I work for, I can talk to you about that in class. =)
Brian Shurtleff said...
Actually, as a second tip, keep in mind that the camp is hiring you to teach kids about game development so during the interview, try to teach the interviewers something about game development. Shows you know what you're talking about and can effectively teach.
I talked a lot about stuff I've picked up from Brenda and Darius about breaking in, and that seemed to work out pretty well for me.