[game_edu] placement rates (was Introduction - Sheri Rubin)

[baylor wetzel]

Is that an accreditation issue? We're also required to have a 70% placement
"in field" (and we sometimes fight over what counts as in-field), but i
thought it was an arbitrary number our school chose. i hadn't realized that
it was set by accreditation

One issue i'm unsure of is how we handle "self-employed". Our program
explicitly focuses on small game companies - we place people in large
companies from time to time but we realize the midwest isn't the gaming
hotspot so we try to make them well rounded and prepare them for small,
indie and casual game jobs. A lot of students start their own game
companies. The question is whether to count those as being employed. Someone
with a staff of five, some venture capital, a real office and a publisher
relationship working 40 hours a week should count but someone who has a day
job at Walmart, tinkers with a game idea a few hours a week and claims to
have a game company should not. i don't know what criteria my school uses
(or how it can even verify the facts), so placement rates should probably be
taken with a grain of salt

-baylor


On Wed, Sep 23, 2009 at 8:01 AM, Miller, Gary <gmiller at fullsail.com> wrote:


> Our accreditation is contingent on maintaining a 70% placement rate but

> I do not know how that is measured. If you email Coble, Rob

> rcoble at fullsail.com he might be able to give you some stats and point

> you to the measures.  I teach Operating Systems and Machine Architecture

> II in our Game Development program but we do have a Game Design Program

> and a Masters in Game Development which I do not know much about.

>

> -----Original Message-----

> From: game_edu-bounces at igda.org [mailto:game_edu-bounces at igda.org] On

> Behalf Of Dan Carreker

> Sent: Tuesday, September 22, 2009 5:54 PM

> To: IGDA Game Education Listserv

> Subject: Re: [game_edu] placement rates (was Introduction - Sheri Rubin)

>

> Baylor,

>

> I think you have some great points here.

>

> USC has a 49% placement rate?  (making sure I understand you correctly)

> Does anyone have any other data on placement rates? I'm giving a talk

> soon on how to choose a game design school and I'm sure this question

> will come up.

>

>

>

> Dan Carreker

> www.NarrativeDesigns.com

> "If I had only six minutes to live, I wouldn't brood.

>  I'd type a little faster."  - Asimov

>

>

>        ----- Original Message -----

>        From: baylor wetzel <mailto:baylorw at gmail.com>

>        To: amenezes at imagecampus.com.ar ; IGDA Game Education Listserv

> <mailto:game_edu at igda.org>

>        Sent: Tuesday, September 22, 2009 2:45 PM

>        Subject: Re: [game_edu] Introduction - Sheri Rubin

>

>        >In the end, we are training future customers for these

>        > companies and it would be wiser to consider us as

>        > partners, not customers, don't you thnk?

>

>        i realize i'm going to seem like a tremendous jerk, but i'm not

> sure that it is a real partnership. Probably the top issue our school is

> facing is placement - most of our students just aren't getting jobs with

> game companies. This situation is true for most of the game schools i

> know of (USC's GamePipe, based in LA next to 49% of all North American

> game jobs, being the big exception). i don't think my school has a lot

> of leverage with game companies and although i wish they'd give us

> licenses for old games, snippets of source code, free (or cheap) copies

> of Unreal 2007, etc., i honestly don't see any reason why they should

>

>        It's also worth noting that publishers aren't developers and

> developers are often very, very small and frequently go out of business,

> so setting up a relationship with most is fairly difficult. Many of the

> people they hire aren't people with game degrees, they're friends and

> talented people (probably without a degree) who send in a fantastic

> portfolio. Maybe they should hire someone different (although there's a

> good argument that they shouldn't), but they don't. So what's their

> incentive to take the (not insubstantial) time to manage relationships

> with game schools, especially given how many have popped up in the last

> few years (the growth in the number of game schools has been truly

> dizzying)?

>

>        We use cheap tools (Flash, Torque, the level editor in Unreal

> 2004) and not very cheap educational versions of tools such as Photoshop

> and 3DSMax. If we want to show them "classic" games, we show them movies

> and screenshots of them (asking a student to invest 40 hours per game to

> find those classic bits like the bathroom scene in Deus Ex or the low

> int dialog option in Fallout is fairly unrealistic) or, to study

> concepts, we make our clones. As much as we wish we could get Mudbox, a

> motion capture system, the source code to Half-Life and unlimited free

> copies of Monkey Island, we'd be happy with just the game companies

> showing up at our career fair

>

>        -baylor

>

>

>

>

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