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Each month, industry veteran Tom Sloper provides career guidance to game biz wannabes, newbies, and junior professionals with the goal of helping them break into the industry, and stay in. Submit a question to Tom for developer-oriented advice in this column (IGDA members only).

by Tom Sloper

Playing With The Cards You Are Dealt (October 2005)

Hi Tom,

I'm one of those faced with a big college decision after I finish my last year of high school. I've been reading the breaking in forum discussions about college advice. The cost of higher education pretty much amounts to a show-stopper for me. I saw one thread from a couple months ago that talked about the difference between an education and career training. And that got me thinking. From what I've figured out, "education" is more desirable, but career training is more affordable. That'll still be really hard for my family to pull off, but it looks like that's the way I'm going to have to go.

The question is, what will employers think when they see a vocational school on my resume instead of a college? I keep hearing a bachelors degree is necessary. I can't get one of those, so is my resume going to be discarded out of hand?

Can't Afford It

Hi Can't,

You have to play The Games Game with the cards you've been dealt. You can't do what you can't do. Yes, we look at your education, but we look at much more than that. I've never heard of 90% of the schools my applicants went to. One time an applicant was sitting across my desk and I saw on his resume that he'd studied at Yale. I'd gone to a small college in the SUNY system - Yale is so far out of my family's league that I immediately felt a cultural divide with this guy. But I quashed those feelings and tried to ignore the irony, and looked at the other things on his resume. His work experience, the software packages he'd mastered, and his portfolio. I considered his qualifications and how they dovetailed with what we were looking for. I asked him some things to fill the gaps (I hate those trick questions that just try to trip people up). I asked him if he had questions for me (I do ask them that one).

I guess the point I'm not succeeding at making is that you can't worry about how the college will look. Get the best education you can, but don't stop there. Work to use your education, to continue learning, to hone your skills and your portfolio. The name of the college doesn't matter.

Please note that there is no guarantee that Tom will be able to respond to all the questions he receives. It is up to his discretion which questions he uses for this column. For further advice and resources, check out the IGDA's discussion forums, the Breaking In web site and the Students & Newbies Outreach section.

Tom's Bio

Tom Sloper's game biz career began over twenty years ago at Western Technologies, where he designed LCD games and the Vectrex games "Spike" and "Bedlam". There followed stints at Sega Enterprises, Rudell Design, Atari Corporation, and Activision. In 12 years at Activision, Tom produced 36 unique game titles (plus innumerable ports and localizations), designed four games, and won five awards. Tom worked for several months in Activision's Japan operation, in Tokyo. He is perhaps best known for designing, managing and producing Activision's "Shanghai" line. He is currently consulting, writing, speaking, teaching, and developing original games. Find out more at Sloperama.