Blog - Giving a Lecture, perhaps?
Monday, September 1, 2008Earlier this year I caught up with one of my high school teachers, one who spearheaded the launch of a filmmaker's club there that I was happy to join as one of the founding members.
She had wanted me to come back and talk to the club every now and then when I was back home from my life at college as a film student. Help give them guidance and advice and that sort of thing.
Although, as you know by reading this blog, I didn't stay on that path and eventually went into game development instead.
We determined at our last meeting, however, that my path through game development student life would no doubt be even more appealing to high school students.
So it isn't totally official yet, but I may give a lecture at my old high school about working towards a career in game development.
So, in case that does go through and I'm able to give the lecture, I'd like to ask for any of you who do read this blog: any suggestions for things I should mention?
I should be able to talk my head off about the topic, but any of your suggestions might be interesting to hear. You might suggest something I hadn’t thought of or a different angle.
So, what advice do you have for high school students who may have an interest in a career in game development?
Also, to anyone this may apply to, this blog has been added to facebook's blog networks application.
Labels: presenting, students
posted by Brian Shurtleff @ 12:23 AM 1 Comments Links to this post
Blog - Yes, my name is on the internet
Monday, August 25, 2008Since this summer's adventures with EGD, it seems a few people have searched for me (thank you, webstats!)
Don't know if they were coworkers, students of mine, their parents, or some of the industry devs who work with us, but it's interesting to me nonetheless.
Although you all spelled my name wrong, a mistake which you hopefully discovered upon being lead here. ;)
Speaking of my fabulous online presence, I'm pleased to see that as of this writing, only one student postmortem has been added to the list on gamecareerguide.com after the two about games I worked on, which means my name is still being well advertised there.
Of course, what's up with that, fellow students? Get to writing some postmortems to your games and get your name out there!
Labels: EGD, postmortem, students
posted by Brian Shurtleff @ 12:23 AM 1 Comments Links to this post
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 Links to this post