Sunday 29 January 2012

Post School Plans

This post is maybe a bit premature, but I wanted to talk about some of my potential plans once I graduate.

First of all, I really enjoy the academic setting. If you watch Extra Credits—please, please do if you have any interest in Game Design—you may have seen the episode where they discuss post-secondary Game Design education. Hundreds of people like me are graduating every few months with formal Game Design experience. This wasn't a thing ten years ago, and with game companies and publishers becoming enormous—with their triple-a titles now costing tens of millions of dollars—these companies are less willing to take risks on innovation. So where does innovation live?

At school.

You can also find it in the minds and skills of thousands of awesome indie designers out there, including more than a few entrepreneurial indie development houses. But school brings together dozens of passionate idea people and gives them the skills to implement those wacky ideas that become Minecraft and Portal.

I also love a bit of structured chaos and meeting new people and being a mentor, all of which I am finding at VFS. I have thought for a long time that I'd love to teach, too, so I am considering becoming a TA. Teacher's Assistants at VFS help teach, answer student questions, mark assignments, help with events, and do a number of other tasks as required. I think I'd be a good fit, and that it would be a good fit for me. The work/life balance I am seeing there is appealing, and I believe I would feel valued there. I will be able to bring my communications degree, five years as a professional writer, editor, and manager, and my game design diploma (and all the ancillary skills and experience) to the position.

Anyway, just thoughts for now. I need to set up some meetings with current TAs and speak to the program head to see if it would be as rosy as I think, but from here the view is just fine.

As a side note, James Portnow of Extra Credits is coming to VFS Game Design to chat with us about narrative in games this coming week, and VFS has asked me to write a short article about the talk. I'll link to that article later this week.

Thanks for stopping by.

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