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Personal statement for game designing

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7 comments, last by year_of_jubilee 5 years, 9 months ago

Hello people.

Am a Computer science graduate student and planning to do the Game designing course in Canada and this is my personal statement for the college and it is the first draft ,hence no professional or fancy words used here.

Please help me in the statement before i submit it and let me know if there is anything that has to be cancelled or shortened or edited.

The essay is way over the specified word limit and i will work on trimming it so please help me on this. Essay attached as txt file.

Any help would be appreciated.I have just two days left to submit so please reply as soon as possible.

Thank you. 

Essay.txt

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Moving to a more appropriate forum.

Sigh, @sancyrus

  1. If you really wanted good feedback, you would have given us more than 2 days to review this, and get it back to you
  2. You should have given us more context as to what this essay is for, the prompt, info about the school and department your applying for, etc. You mention the School name in your essay, but I'm not going to bother to look it up. Your the one asking for help, you should make it as easy as posible for us to want to help you.
  3. In reading this, you come off ,ore like a high school student applying for college, than a grad student applying for grad school.
  4. There are numerous spelling and grammatical mistakes that a grad school student should have checked for. I'm sorry, but I'm not going to proof your essay for you, that's your job. and we'd need more time, and need to know each other better. if you wanted feedback. You should be asking your friends, family, and class mates for feedback on something this important, not randos on the internet.
  5. You say you want to be a designer, but you also say your experience and education is in programming. A designer needs to be familiar in both programming and art. You clearly say you have no interest/ experience/ education in art.
  6. Why are you using note pad instead of Microsoft word? As a student, you should have access to word. Word also would have caught many of your spelling and grammatical mistakes.
  7. The 1st third of your essay is just you telling us that you enjoy playing games, and the feeling of playing/ . It clearly tells us you don;t know the difference between playing and making.  (Or gives that impression strongly)
  8. It sounds like you've never tried to create a game before. It sounds like your an idea guy. It sounds like you've done no or little research into the roles and jobs in the games industry. Knowing what games companies make and playing them is very different from working with them day to day. I interviewed Marks Skags, for a project back in 2015, and he said game design is like playing games in the sense that your playing the same game over and over again, and it's broken. I'd add, and it's your responsibility to fix it.
  9. Education is not the magic bullet that will get you to your dream job, it's just the theoretical foundation. Even if you get a degree, a company won't be impressed with that, unless your from one of the top schools like Stanford, Harvard, Yale, etc.  A games degree does not guarantee you a spot in the industry.
  10. You need to work on your portfolio and on a team project. Looking for classmates, friends at school who share your interest can be challenging for introverted types, but it's just something you need to learn. There are also countless resources online, such as the site we are on now to help find team mates online. True artists and creatives down't wait for a teacher to teach them how to be creative, that just start making stuff and learn along the way. Formal education id meant to hone and focus that energy.
  11. The last sentence about creating your own story is nice, but it's not what a programmer or designer is meant to do. Writing is it's own discipline and unless your part of a small team, you likely won't get any say in the dpt at all. You need to focus and specialize in one maybe two disciplines.
  12. I've read over your essay 3 times now, and If I received this in an application, I'd likely roll my eyes and say this guy has no clue what he wants to do. That more research should have been done. All you tell us is that you like the final product of games, and you are inspired by the potential they have. You tell us several conflicting things about why you want to make games.
  13. You should have told us why IT/ Engineering isn't for you, and why you want a switch.
  14. You talk about 5 year, 10 year benchmarks but your not even in the door. As I said, it also sounds like you've done nothing to get you in the door for your desired role. Why wouldn't you want to do programming for games? That is the easiest potential application, yet you skip over it and talk about unrelated hopes and dreams.
  15. I bet most people who saw this post just rolled their eyes, thought WTF, and moved on.
  16. Doing something to prove people wrong is only human, but it's not a long term sustainable motivation. Years ago back in my claning/ league/ guild days a player told me he plays games because his dad told him he'd never get anywhere playing them. If you'd bother to do your research you'd know the average age of gamers is actually 30,
  17. You do mention a lot of technical skills, instead of just putting them down, and say you're sure they are similar ot transferable to games, you could have doen some basic research, and find out which of those skills are indeed applicable. 
  18. The other thing about the games industry, is that no one will pay you to implement your pet ideas, my lawyer once told me, if you just want to work in games, join a company, but if you want to direct your own IP, and have a say as to what you're making, then you need to start a company.
  19. Game Designer is a very Senior position, this person is the one that does the fundamental mechanics and game play planning. It's possible to hold this role in small indie projects, but it's a lot of work.
  20. It's not clear if your a grad student applying for grad school, or a grad student looking to change careers and going back to school for a Bachelors. With a CS degree, you should have a good foundation for  game programming. If your intention is to get a 2md bachelors degree, specifically in a games discipline,  It's usually not worth it. Your just as likelly to get a games job with a CS degree than a games degree. Sometimes employers like CS degrees more, since they're more versatile. There are people who get games degrees, thinking it's a golden ticket,   then their stuck when no games company will hire them, and screwed since normal CS people think games is too specialized. 

Our company homepage:

https://honorgames.co/

My New Book!:

https://booklocker.com/books/13011.html

Wow... @GeneralJist

You really put me in tears with your feedback. (Just kidding).Appreciate you being straight up with me and I had no idea that the essay so negative and screwed up. However as I mentioned before, the essay was the first draft and I have edited the same. Please take a look at the edited one which might be better. I forgot to mention that this essay was for design schools like Toronto film school, Van Arts and Lasalle college for the game designing program. I did specify that I do not have exp in art/designing field but I didn't mean to say I wasn't interested in it. I already have a portfolio of art, sketching and digital drawings designed to show my talent in the art so I did not include any "artistic" lines in the essay as I wanted to let my portfolio speak for the design part. Since game designing is both programming and designing I specified that I have exp in programming but want to learn the design part form the school. The prompt form college says I just have to write a short essay about the interest and roles in the gaming industry along with the locations of major gaming companies in Canada. My starting position and career goals in the next 5 or 10 years.

 

Thank a lot for your prompt feedback and i will work more on the portfolio and the essay itself to make it look more like a university essay.

essay final.docx

I'm glad you found my feedback helpful.

I will not apologize for having high standards.

I Assume TFS refers to Toronto Film school:

http://www.tessay final (3).docxorontofilmschool.ca/programs/video-game-design-development/

Not

Toronto French school . 

https://www.tfs.ca/page

When I typed TFS into google, the French school came up as most common result. 

You should have included a link to the school and program or at very least spelled out the full name of the school somewhere in your post of essay. 

It's common practice to give the full name of any acronym you use, for not well known acronyms. It's something that just helps things along. I shouldn't had to have spend more than a minute trying to figure out what TFS stood for. 

I'm getting the impression that English is not your 1st language,   a lot of the grammatical mistakes are still there ub your 2nd draft. And Honestly it's not much better than your 1st. 

I understand you are a CS major, and may not have been trained in as rigorous  an English/ writing as I have. I'm a psychology major, I wrote a lot of essays and research papers, not  to mention getting As/ Bs in all my English/ writing related classes. However you should have gotten a basic to intermediate level of education in  college, it's usually a general education requirement for all students, regardless of major. 

I'm tempted to rewrite it for you, but I shouldn't do that. (The whole teach a person o fish vs give a person a fish) Not to mention It wouldn't be your work if I did. 

I've highlighted all the parts that  should be reviewed, and added comments.  

  • I would remove your last sentence about writing your own story,  If you feel strongly about it, at it in the beginning where you talk about your ideas. 
  •  The gaming industry is casinos and Las Vegas,  the games industry is what we are talking about. 
  • I just realized your 1st line is meant to be a quote. Put quotation marks. 
  • Add a title

 

It says:

"

  • When submitting your transcripts, please make sure that you have successfully completed a Grade 11 visual arts course (Courses in Grade 11 Computers/Digital Media are also recommended, but not required).
  • We want to hear your thoughts on the gaming industry! Submit a short essay (300–500 words) outlining your personal and career goals in video games. We’ll be looking for your overall understanding of the video game industry and how you envision yourself building a gaming career. We encourage you to include major Canadian video game production companies, various skill sets of a design and development team, your ideal entry-level position after graduating, and growth trends in industry careers. Please note, your short essay will not be returned."

A lot of work needs to be done, and I don't know if there is enough time. 

essay final (3).docx

 

Our company homepage:

https://honorgames.co/

My New Book!:

https://booklocker.com/books/13011.html

On 8/23/2018 at 11:54 PM, GeneralJist said:

I've read over your essay 3 times now, and If I received this in an application, I'd likely roll my eyes and say this guy has no clue what he wants to do. That more research should have been done.

[..]

I bet most people who saw this post just rolled their eyes, thought WTF, and moved on.

Statements like these arent constructive. Please refrain from comments like this.

Ok fair enough, I was being a little more critical than i should have been, because I really wanted him to get the point that the doc needed to be changed in a big way. 

Our company homepage:

https://honorgames.co/

My New Book!:

https://booklocker.com/books/13011.html

Sorry it's too late to help you on the editing side of things buddy! Looks like you got a mostly fair critique, and despite some of the critical one-offs, there is value in these high-standard edits (though it's always best to get these from trusted professors, mentors, etc). Kudos to you for putting your work up on the internet (where you never know what you're going to get)! 

My two cents is to invest a little research time into the differences between written and spoken English. You write a lot like my brothers--they are excellent communicators in real life but never got a proper introduction to grammar! The great thing about writing is that no matter what field you are entering, writing is a great skill to practice. From programmers to film directors to ad execs, I've heard this same advice: write, write, write. What helped me the most was just jotting down my thoughts first thing in the morning. Don't think of it as a diary--just think of it as scraping off the crust at the beginning of the day. Or, like brushing your teeth and hair--except for your mind? Whatever analogy floats your boat. xD When I started doing this, it was just to help my mind focus. Inadvertently, it helped my writing. Because you might not always know what to write when you sit down for an essay or a short story or what-have-you, but your monkey mind is a gold mine. So, long story short, I think you know what you want to say, you just need to clean up how you say it. You don't have to be a professional writer to have a clean and professional writing style that presents the best version of you and your thoughts.

God bless, my man, and Godspeed!

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