Journal #7747

Posted 12 years ago2012-04-16 15:15:10 UTC
Skals SkalsLevel Designer
Today was the most intense day I've had in years. I had a university interview at De Monfort, for pretty much the best games art course in England. It was all way too serious and scary, I showed the man my portfolio showing the best of my Photoshop & Illustrator work, 3DS Max Work (Models, Bipeds, Particle Effects), Flash Animations (Including y'all comments :D), Unreal Editor 2&3 work, and my counter-strike levels :D (With a screenshot of Daubsters review for the latest competition), Also had to show him plenty of life drawings and other sketches. He was flicking through my screenshots so quickly I was talking almost as fast as the Japanese lady who showed me around the campus (She was talking extremely fast). But no, I was smiling all the way, not mufflin me words, it went quite well I think. They were nodding and seemed like they liked my work.
A friend of mine from my course had the same interview a few days ago, he wasn't accepted and they declined him straight away. For me they said they'll get in contact with me within a week, so at least I know I have a chance to get into the course! In total over 500 people applied for the course, probably only a 100 got to the interview processes, there are only 40 places, It's very very serious. Wish me luck guys!

16 Comments

Commented 12 years ago2012-04-16 16:34:39 UTC Comment #55334
I wish you the best luck you can get. Hope we'll soon see you at Valve ;).
Commented 12 years ago2012-04-16 16:47:50 UTC Comment #55325
Yeah skals! Good luck!
Commented 12 years ago2012-04-16 17:21:34 UTC Comment #55326
Good luck!
Commented 12 years ago2012-04-16 18:38:13 UTC Comment #55335
Good luck, Skals!
Commented 12 years ago2012-04-16 19:02:33 UTC Comment #55330
Thank you guys! I do hope I'll be a future Valve employee yes striker :D Then after 5 years I can tell you when they will start working on hl3 and not portal 29 :D
Commented 12 years ago2012-04-16 20:19:42 UTC Comment #55321
Wow, nice work. I wish you the best of luck.
Commented 12 years ago2012-04-16 21:39:29 UTC Comment #55336
Awesome, you have a good chance dude :)
Wish you luck!
Commented 12 years ago2012-04-16 23:00:34 UTC Comment #55324
They will love the fact you've self-taught yourself so much. An incredible number of people have no instinct to just say "I want to make game levels. I'm going to find out how".

You'll get it no bother, congrats dood!
Commented 12 years ago2012-04-17 00:39:19 UTC Comment #55333
Good luck sir! (i think you are a shoe-in as well =P)
Commented 12 years ago2012-04-17 05:35:49 UTC Comment #55331
Yeah, they were looking for people that did related stuff in their free time, not just in schools/colleges. He also asked me If I came to the open day and I f I have questions about the course; I replied "yes I came to the open day, and no I don't have questions because I know everything about the course already..." and he seemed to like that a lot, since it shows my interest in the course.
Commented 12 years ago2012-04-17 13:06:54 UTC Comment #55328
good luck!
Commented 12 years ago2012-04-17 19:03:07 UTC Comment #55322
Haha. Not to piss on your Cornflakes Skals, but I just read this in PCGamer's Valve interview and it made me chuckle.

PCG: Is there anything you'd say to someone on a game development course?
Erik: If you can learn by doing, do it. At least at Valve, a degree will be meaningless. The product that you've created, making something, is much more important...
Commented 12 years ago2012-04-17 23:04:53 UTC Comment #55327
It will always boil down to how good your portfolio is, regardless of who's hiring.

Apart from the learning value, you mainly want to get into courses like these for the networking opportunities. You get to meet & progress with like-minded professionals IRL, which makes a huge difference when forming teams for your first real projects.
Commented 12 years ago2012-04-18 05:01:10 UTC Comment #55332
"Erik: If you can learn by doing, do it. At least at Valve, a degree will be meaningless. The product that you've created, making something, is much more important..." Yes, and that's why I'm trying to get into this course. The level of standard of the work they have over there is amazing. Look here: http://www.dmu.ac.uk/Study/Courses/Undergraduate-courses/game-art-design-ba-degree/game-art-design-student-work.aspx
Commented 12 years ago2012-04-18 18:39:21 UTC Comment #55323
Well, that's me told. Heh, again best of look. :)
Commented 12 years ago2012-04-18 18:49:41 UTC Comment #55329
Congratulations!
I hope to see you at Valve some day. You should do well in the course, you are already a great mapper.

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