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

[Miller, Gary]

I am at the limit of my knowledge on what count but I know that if we
fall below 70% we will loose our accreditation so we push to find out
what our graduates are doing.  There is always a bigger push when we get
audited by the accreditation folks. 

-----Original Message-----
From: game_edu-bounces at igda.org [mailto:game_edu-bounces at igda.org] On
Behalf Of baylor wetzel
Sent: Wednesday, September 23, 2009 10:49 AM
To: IGDA Game Education Listserv
Subject: Re: [game_edu] placement rates (was Introduction - Sheri Rubin)

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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