Task 23: Life Changing or Career Building?

Education in games is something not everyone is familiar with, I know this because my grandmother still tells me “what the heck are you playing at, why don’t you learn something that will benefit you in the future”. No-matter how many times I try to explain it to her she still thinks that studying Law or Physics is far more beneficial than studying about Game Art.

This seems to be the general conception on everyone’s minds. But more and more people are accepting that you do not need a degree on something that everyone’s does to get a decent future.  

Soft skills are personal attributes that enhance an individual's interactions, job performance and career prospects, which allow the person to be recruit-able in the long term if he/she is looking for a job. Soft skills are great for developing as a sociable person; however this alone would not be sufficient as a job prospect.

We do not know exactly what sort of requirements are needed for the future, but we can prepare ourselves. One way we can do this is by going to the right places to find the right education that suits you. I think if the industry is to grow then we as students need to grow, we need to adapt to new learning methods whilst keeping and following the specific technical skills that have already been set. I don’t mean constantly being told to learn new software and packages.

Having a learning structure on the basis of a game companies needs is very difficult to maintain. As game companies are always changing in terms of what they want from students, it is hard to keep up with demands. The competition is tuff, when there are game companies going bust leaving ex-employees searching for jobs, is there a chance of us newbie’s getting a job. It’s hard to say. 

Game companies want people who are versatile in what they can do and achieve for their company. Some game companies wanting 2d artists and some wanting programmers. It’s good that most education facilities are versatile in this way the student can benefit from both worlds. He/she can never expect to for-see the future. At one point he wanted to be a concept artist but at the end of the course he changed his minds and wanted to be an environment artist which is fine as he studied both. So he gets the best from both worlds.   
Nearly done all the blogs for this year, just got one more blog to go, the review of the year which I will do after the formative assessment.