Contacting Irish People Working Abroad

hi jamie,

you can contact Paul McLaughlin (art lead from Lionhead) through his GD profile)

you might also like to contact the admin folks on the IGDA main site… they have 190 Irish members in ther database. feel free to name drop the Irish chapter members if it helps

cheers,
tony

i’ll mention it to him when i’m contacting him next (next week some time). i’ll let you how i get on

Even though I am abroad, I dont think you’d want to contact me,
my message to the kids would be – ‘drop out of school get cause its shit. Get focused and go do what you really want to do’

That kinda assumes you know exactly what you want to do when you are 15/16. Most people dont, and most of the people that do only think they do…

Dave

Yup, the neon lights and golden paved streets of Dundee called me from an early age.

I have all summer to continue striving towards what I love.

Ivan – If you don’t mind me asking, how far did you take you education? Did you stop upon completing your GCSEs or perhaps A levels?

I’d be interested to know cause you haven’t done all that bad for yourself. Don’t worry if you don’t want to answer that here, I’ll bug you on msn about it. :D

Sheesh…you northern irish….we don’t do those silly exams…its junior and leaving cert down this direction.

I hope the contacts I set you up with are of use jamie!

Is the geneal feeling here one of “school is rubbish and you should leave”?, I find that hard to believe, unless ye all went to rubbish schools. Ithink the best way to go about things is to just do what you see as interesting provided you have finished school. So far I’ve got my degree in graphic design,web design, and image illustration… now I’m at 3d modeling and programming, I think learning at your own pace and being patient is the best route to partail success, anyway’s ronny after your post in the msn and especially because your only 18, you’ve got loads of time to refine your education, heck you’ve probably got 3-4 years on the rest of us. By the time i finish the second level Ludo course i’ll be 24, and one of the guys in my class this year already left because he was 23-24 and decided that the time for education was over,mind you he was pretty skilled at Max anyway so he got on alright. after I finish I want to teach english in Japan and hopfully learn a bit of Japanese myself,opening up further avenues….all in hope of getting a bloody job in the industry.

Omega – there are jobs without going to the extreme’s of learning Japanese.

I think I am somewhat different from other folk here – most seem to be coders or naturally gifted as artists (thats not to suggest coding ability isnt a naturally ability ;) ).

Yes, my school was shit.

Yeah Jamie, they shouldn’t be suprised to hear from you :)

Omega – as far a higher education in games is concerned, there is a long way to go yet. I got my degree in Computer Applications from DCU and then went onto Abertay to get my PgDip in Computer Games Technology. Looking back, I could have gone straight into a degree in games tech in Abertay, but I think going the way I went was much more benificial. Learning to code properly and then adapting for game rather than learning to code games from the off really helped.
Education is important, especially for coders I think and if nothing else, having that piece of paper at the end of the day does make you more employable.
Going the other route is a harder one i think. Ivan is a testement to the drive needed to make it work always striving to work in games. I mean look…he’s stuck in Dundee at the moment!

Yes I know that there are avenues of less extreme in education, but all I’m doing is my best to consume what courses there are….available to me ofcourse, not all of us were able to systematically remember every page of every book in our leaving cert, which is by matter of opinion a dire way to evaluate someone’s capabilities… I much prefer the English alternative, or the American for that matter!, plus I tghink some of you are confusing what I am trying to say.

Omen, you have obviously earned your “stats”, and I congratulate you, but like I said not all of us benefited from our leaving cert, and please, spare me the “you should have studied more” routine, because i did. Maybe i will never gain enough “pieces of paper” to get my dream job but to hell with isolating people into certain groups because of their acedemical achievments!

Your faith is heart warming jamie, but I doubt your research is correct, sorry, i mean regarding irish people. Although it would be nice if you WERE indeed correct. whatever the outcome i’ll still carry on with my dream, and hopeful as you say will suceed. the best of luck too all of us

Personally I was very unhappy with my high school education. I wasn’t too heartbroken when I had to leave because of medical problems. The teachers left the kids to do whatever they want while they went off for a cup of coffee.

Then once I was back to 100% I had my health back and equally as important, my self confidence. My academic options were extremely poor and I was one of twenty people to be accepted into a course at the Belfast Institute of Further and Higher Education to retake our GCSEs. Nearly two hundred people applied so I know how lucky I was to get in. After that there was no way I was going to mess it up, even if I didn’t like the college. Surprisingly the teachers were fantastic and very helpful and caring, the other students were great and I made some good friends.

One year ago I was down and out and now I’m back on track and although I’m eighteen and at a level of education most sixteen year olds are at I couldn’t be happier. I’m about to go onto my levels and know that my education is helping me in all aspects of my all. I have much more belief in myself, got new great friends and am learning a lot academically but also about life. The point is education has pretty much saved me and it’s too bad not everyone enjoyed their experience. People like Ivan have had to fight hard to prove themselves and get where there are today and not rely on certificates. I admire them for that.

Before going back to education I wasn’t doing all that much to improve my chances of getting hired. Now with a fantastic teaching staff behind me I’ve been able to motivate myself and am now studying 3DS Max, concept art and much more. Next up is my A levels for two years, which is like the Irish leaving cert.

I’m not a huge fan of the Irish or British examining boards and think major reform should take place but without the opportunity to take my GCSEs again this year I’d be facing an extremely bumpy road ahead.

I think you got the wrong end of what I was saying. I’m not critising anyone who doesn’t go to higher education. At the end of the day, all you really get from it is a piece of paper. Everything else is up to up. That piece of paper makes life easier to get a job.
Not doing this means you have 4 years where you can hone your skills in the area you are striving for and with this you can come out with better qualifications to do the job.
And whats more important…a degree or experience? Once you gain experience, a degree doesn’t really mean that much.
The thing is, I didn’t know where I was going in the computer industry until recently….say 2 years ago. So further education allowed me to expand my horizons to see this opportunity. I jsut think its harder without this, because you probably need a clearer idea of where you’re going at an earlier age…something that I just didn’t have.