Week 19 - Life changing or career building?

At first I thought that Liberal Arts meant any subject that was artistic, for example photography, sculpture, fashion, graphics design…

But upon doing some research, it turns out that “Liberal Arts” was just a posh term for any non-art related subject. This includes maths, chemistry, biology, physics, Latin, Greek, History, Geography, humanities and so on.

Liberal Arts, in my opinion, is useful, as everyone should learn a wide variety of general knowledge. This is why we have SATs, GCSEs and A-levels. A highly trained graduate artist with at least some form of liberal arts background would be a great applicant, however, it may not be humanly possible for this to happen. When it comes to three years of university, the subject studied by the student should be narrowed down to fit the career path they wish to take, therefore learning a specialized course such as Game Art would be appropriate since the industry is a very specialised field. From what I have heard from the Blitz and Rare visitors, they are looking for specialists with great portfolios that fit exactly what is written in the job description, therefore it is better to be exceptional at one particular subject rather than be mediocre in everything.

Week 15 - Games Industry

As we are all aware, we are currently experiencing an economic recession, meaning that many industries are changing. In recent years, games have been an extremely fast-increasing source of entertainment that is catching up with the films industry. It is still going strong but anything can happen in this world, and it too can be shaken by this recession.

Jobs are getting increasingly hard to find. From what I’ve heard, 16 game companies in the UK have closed down. That is an incredibly scary thought. Competition in the game industry is strong, but not only that, the sales of games are currently suffering as well. There is a problem with credit which is unavailable in Eastern European countries and scarce and in the Middle East, so transporting gaming products is becoming a difficulty. In the USA, retailers are choosing only the best games to order. Trading is one of the major concerns.

At the moment, all I’m can do is to work hard, be efficient, push boundaries and wait for this bleak period to lift. Sounds simple, but what else is there to do? No point in sitting around and sulk, at least make good use of my time while I’m in First Year and get something DONE!

EDIT: Hey... if the economy recovers two years later when we graduate, does that mean we'll be competing with the previous graduates who didn't manage to get jobs? That's triple the competition?