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
(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!
Wish you luck!
You'll get it no bother, congrats dood!
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...
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.
I hope to see you at Valve some day. You should do well in the course, you are already a great mapper.