GDC: Day 2

Hey,

Today I spent the day in the career pavilion. I brought my resumes today and went to all the booths that would collect them and others that were just giving advice. I did my only real fanboy move and started at the Blizzard booth even though I knew they didn't have a position open for me. After that I went to several more booths and either gave my resume or got feedback. All of the feedback was positive and usually mentioning that it was good that I'd gotten an internship last summer. The one thing I can really appreciate from being a business student is that I know how to make a good resume.

A lot of the companies didn't have a position open for me but still seemed enthusiastic about taking my resume or meeting me. I'm not sure I made much of an impression on anyone but I think I tried my best. I never went up and said here's my resume, please hire me but I also never managed to start a long conversation with anyone. I would generally go up and ask about open positions then ask if they'd give me advice on my resume. This seemed to work but there are probably other ways to go about it.

For lunch I went to the annual IGDA meeting where they supplied free lunch (I knew my IGDA membership was worth more than a ribbon!). The meeting was really intereseting for someone not currently in the industry. I am up to date on all the public news released by developers but a lot of the more private/industry insider was what was discussed. The IGDA seems to be in a state of change and is working on becoming more effective at protecting people already in the industry, providing more information to everyone, and helping people break into the industry. In the next few years I see IGDA becoming even more powerful or losing a significant member base.

Afterwards I went back to the career pavillion where I basically ended up wandering around since I'd been to almost every booth. While wandering I ran into my old internship boss who I got to talk to for a while. I finally learned when the game I worked on is being released and what parts I worked on are actually going into the game. It will definitely be an exciting moment when I get to see my name in the credits.

At the end of the day I went to a session with several former video game writers who now have jobs in the industry. The session was not really informative in a specific way but I did find it interesting. The panelists were also for the most part funny and they kept the session very light and entertaining.

At night I went out with my friend from EA and met one of his bosses. His boss was very cool and really amsuing to talk to and also extremely important. While waiting for him to finish up a conversation Phil Harrison walked up to him to say hi. That night I also got to have my first "oh, you made that game moment". In class our teacher showed us a flash game to demonstrate how powerful flash is and what you can do with it. I met the dev of the game my teacher demonstrated and talked to him for a big part of the night (he made Fancy Pants). After meeting up with his boss we went to another bar for a bit, got dinner, and went to party that'd ran out of beer.


Cyaz