Internship

[Anonymous]

Hi, I’m currently a second year student at the Coleraine campus of the University of Ulster and I have to start applying for the internship I have to do in my third year. I am really interested in getting into the gaming industry, especially programming, so I want to try and get my placement with a games company. I have contacted a few companies but have had little to no luck with most of them so far and was wondering if anybody here could help point me in the right direction of places I could try or if you know companies looking for interns.

I have some experience in game development. I took part in the Ireland Imagine Cup this year where we developed a PC/360 game using XNA to aid teachers and parents when teaching children how to spell using the Linguistic Phonics Approach currently being piloted by the Belfast Education and Library Board. I was the lead programmer on this project in which we came second place. I have also been experimenting a bit with XNA in my free time.

I also have experience with Java, as this is the main language we are taught in the university, but not in a games development environment. Currently what I have learnt in relation to games development has been mostly self-taught.

I would really appreciate it if somebody could help me with trying to find an internship.

Thanks for any help,
David

[Anonymous]

first off, you dont state what you are actually studying in college.
secondly, i would say, look abroad. there is a lot of work for the right candidate in the field of games programming. look at gamasutra
http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/jobs_display.php
ireland is a games development black hole. most poky easten european countrys that typically export builders and cheap vodka have better prospects for games development than ireland.
thirdly, get experiance. no offence to anyone here, but a plain old vanilla programming/ computer sciences degree, is not the most important thing to have. get involved with independant games development.
(maybe look at developing some quick games on ogre and XNA and flash. get other people on board though. it speeds things up and shows you can work with a team)
join up with mod teams. get super active on games development forums (i mean really active ones where people are actually creating portfolio grade content, not ones where people just talk a good game)
fourthly, look into "how" you are aproaching games companies. you need to introduce yourself to a prospective employer correctly, showing what you have done before, that is relevent to their needs and why you are the ideal candidate for hiring. that means cover letter, portfolio (online version and hardcopy material) calling the developer to see if they got your application, etc.
lastly, look at contacting games specific employment agencies. they advertise in edge magazine, and all over the net. it might help, and it can hurt.
i hope my ramblings help, and wish you luck.

[Anonymous]

Thanks very much for your reply. I can’t believe I forgot to say what course I’m doing. I’m on the BSc Hons Computing and DIS course. So it is mainly java programming orientated but we now have a choice this year to take a gaming module where we will be taught using XNA. This module is in our second semester. I have chosen this module because I really enjoy games programming.

I do realise that it may be a bit hard to get a games development internship in Ireland and I’m certainly willing to go over to England or Scotland, etc. to work.

I know what you mean about just having the degree and needing more than that, that’s why I’ve been trying to take all the opportunities placed before me to get experience, including taking part in the Imagine Cup and working for a company over the summer doing Java programming.

So far I don’t have many games to show, I’ve got what we did for the Imagine Cup and I’ve also been working on a Breakout game. Currently I’m finishing off the Breakout game, trying to improve the backend structure.

I’ll have a lookout for the Edge magazine you mentioned. I don’t think I’ve ever seen it but I’ll certainly keep an eye out.

Thanks again for your reply! I really appreciate it.

[Anonymous]

found this. a list of internships available.

http://www.game-artist.net/forums/hiring/2519-studios-offering-internships-entry-level-positions.html

yes, the thread is mainly artist-centric, but if they are willing to take on an artist they may well take on a programmer.

[Anonymous]

Thanks very much, that is extremely helpful. There are a few companies on that list I havn’t tried yet so I’ll contact those. Thanks again!!!

[Author]

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