game art college graduate success rate....
polycounter lvl 12
what would a general percentage be of the graduates from game art colleges that ended up getting a job? I know it differs from school to school but Ive heard somewhere that its around 10%, is this true?
Replies
Also is this actual reputable games companies, or do indies and related industries count?
What "related fields" means is anybodies guess, could be that half of them are working at GameStop.
I would note from my experience (my first degree was in math, physics, computer sci at a traditional college) that only about 20% of us that started made it through to the end. So, if you consider non-finishers the percentage has to be as high as 95% to 98% do not get jobs in the industry. For graduates I would guess it is around 80% do not get jobs in the industry (within three years of graduating). Part of the problem is that many graduates still think that the diploma will get them a job (and this is true for most college students, not just "game art"). It is a shame when you consider all the money spent, but if you are driven, work hard, and are hungry to learn I would argue that the percentage has to be much higher. These are the people that get shit done, improve over time, and seek out more knowledge to improve their skills.
I think most people's anecdotal evidence is going to put the percentage fairly low. I wouldn't be surprised if it was somewhere around 10%, though counting jobs like QA, game customer support, or anything that involves light graphics work pushes that percentage a decent bit higher. In my black and white scenario, if someone enters a game art program and doesn't find employment working as an artist in video games or a related field like film, tv, etc, they shouldn't really be counted as successfully employed in a school's advertising numbers.
Not all people who do not end up in the industry do so because their skills are not good. Some realize that they really want to do something different and go on to study something else. Others take non game but graphic related jobs because they want to live in a certain area where there's no studios. Many people take time out after graduating, and many more sit at home polishing their reels
That wouldn't surprise me, I know they count QA.
Many more don't even graduate.
So, success rates aren't too good, but none of that matters at all. What matters is you.
If you aren't willing to do the work, no school can help you get a job.
The moral of the story? Work your ass off, no matter. It's much more reliable than statistics.
Yea this is pretty true. I agree with the 2-3% figure.
They never even asked me if I had a job or not so I have no idea how they get their numbers. I have never heard of anyone being asked either. I even had a job before graduating and they didn't ask during the exit interview. The exit interview was all about $$$.
Of the 3-5 from my class only 2 that I know of are still actually working in games, Myself and one other guy from my class. The rest are working in IT, much more money and far less stress - but those guys do miss the creative melting pot / endless challenge of being in games.
Note regarding what MrSkullface said: Thinking back, All 5 of us gave a shit, the rest showed up, played or talked about games, and pretty much did the absolute bare minimum to get their diplomas. I like that none of those people ended up in the industry - there are way too many of those already.
Pretty much this.
Yes! No one got into games without working hard. Not something you can just fall into.
I know game schools have terrible reputations but I think it's not all their fault. Gotta work hard to get whatcha want! Some people don't want to work hard.
But to just say "They should have worked harder!" kinda gets under my skin. I knew some talented people that didn't ever get jobs and some slacker people did. Could I have worked harder? Maybe... but probably not without having mommy and daddy pay for everything for me. You can work crazy hard and if you are not working on the right things it's utterly useless. I always felt like I was fighting the curriculum. I had to waste time doing stupid assignments and rush to get them done so I could learn other things on my own. Things that they SHOULD have been teaching.
I don't regret going to school but I "was" a little bitter, Even with a job after graduating. It's hard to not have the feeling that you got ripped off when you spent so much money and you find out that you could have just learned what you needed on Polycount.
That's why people should look really carefully into the syllabus of any "game college". I'm really glad my college had classes that are more difficult to do on your own, or which offered subjects that many people don't really explore when just focusing at game art; such as art history, life drawing, painting, lighting (in a studio with actual lights), acting for animators, traditional 2d animation, filming (with actual cameras), cinematography and story telling... sure, you can skip all this if you really just want to make it into the industry, but 10 years after graduation I value all the additional subjects I've been exposed to, some of which I probably wouldn't have touched on my own. Nevermind there was no PC or gnomon back then, but that's a different story
I graduated with 9 others in our art program and I think all but 3 have found professional artist work in the games in the or animation industry since 2009. I know of several others from classes after ours that have too. The ones that haven't are the ones that haven't put in the work.
If you can learn on your own, you can skip game art school, but if you lack discipline or have a hard time learning/doing on your own, you might be better off going to one.
I'd have never stuck with it if I didn't go to school because I had no discipline or motivation back in 2007. I'd learned photoshop years prior, but the jump to 3d art seemed to daunting to do on my own at the time.
~30 artists started.
~15 graduated
~6 got jobs
~3 in real-time 3d games.
Out of 14, my self included.
I work for Gameloft on with a Full-time Permanent Position.
2 are working QA for various companies.
1 is full-time an Artist at ngmoco:)
2 had short-term contracts with ngmoco:) and are currently freelance while looking for something more permanent.
1 has been freelance since graduation.
1 has been contract for EA.
1 works at Bestbuy.
1 works at Walgreens.
1 works for Glu Mobile.
1 works for the school as a tutor.
1 is a Tech Artist at KIXEYE.
Extra Credits has one of the best presentations on game schools, more from the "considering what school you want to go to" side of things;
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It's the same in any class I've heard of and been in, the people who don't make it are usually the ones that hardly try to make good art or at least stuff that's commercially attractive.
http://unistats.direct.gov.uk/Subjects/Overview/10007147-CCANM-3D_GAMES_ART
ahh now you believe me!
Here is our student website - http://uhanimation.co.uk
Here is our student showreel -
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Here is our students real time showreel -
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Here is our main Polycount thread.
http://www.polycount.com/forum/showt...=hertfordshire
Going to be cutting a new 2013 showreel soon! and boy this years students rock! We also have a new member of staff joining us from Weta next week after a nine year stint on Lord of the Rings, King Kong and the Hobbit:) more details to follow on that one, happy days.
Forgot to say most of the students have A levels at AA +A*! and this year we have 800 applications for 78 places, they could have been Doctors
Aleksandrs Jerjomins - http://www.jerjomin3d.co.uk/
His showreel
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this seems to happen a lot
Ahh! Airborn but I love you guys
yes it does. one of my classes was taught by someone who graduated the year before.
The fairest way of doing this data is to ask the graduates themselves, here is a thread on our UH student forum. If you don't trust me ask any of our alumni if the list is true and what they think of the course
Also just to add, we are not just Games Art, we offer 2D, 3D and VFX and the students are quite an even split apart from my level 2 this year which has grown a bit to large. but we like to keep the class size down to around 20ish after the first year is finished.
Looking at the list there are also a lot of start ups that we need to add, like
http://www.rewindfx.com/
http://www.onedeadpixel.com
http://www.squareedge.co.uk/ and many more
Here are the companies
3D, 2D & VFX :-
Activ8
AixSponza
Analog
Aniboxx
Animated Storyboards
Archipelago
Atticus Finch
Axis Animation
Baby Cow
Base Black
Big Red Button
BinWeevils
BlinkInk
Blue Zoo
Boutiq
Caboom
The Character Shop
Cinesite
Click 3X
CoolToons
Cult Toons
Cumi Ltd
Digi-Guys
Digipost New Zealand
Disney Production
Double Negative
FireStep
Fluid Pictures
Framestore
Glassworks
Glowfrog
Gnu Films
Happy Finish
Hi-ReS
Huge Media
ImpossibleTV
Infinite Frameworks
Jellyfish Pictures
Jim Henson's Creature Shop
Kavaleer Productions
Kazoo Creative
Keyframe Studios
Mainframe
Method Studios
Moving Picture Company
Munky
The Mill
National Space Centre
Natural Motion
The Neighbourhood
Neon
Nexus Productions
Nomint Pictures
Nvisage
Nvizible
One Dead Pixel
Overthrow Productions
Passion Pictures
Picasso Pictures
Picture House TV
Pipedreams 3D
Pixomondo
Plowman Craven
The Pond
Prime Focus
PTE media
Qvisten Studios
Realtime UK
Redvision
ReelGood
Rewind FX
Rise FX
RJDM Animations
Saddington & Baynes
Selex SI
The Senate VFX
The Sex Pixels
Sherbert
Smoke and Mirrors
Spider Eye
StitchthatTV
Storm Studios
Studio AKA
Studio Liddell
Sudden Black (SBTV)
Th1ng
The Third Floor, Inc
Tidal Films
Uber
Vine Post Production
Visual Method
Windmill Lane VFX
Zoo Films
Games:-
Activision (Shanghai)
Activision (UK)
Apache Solutions Ltd
Babel Media
Beatnik Games
Blitz Games
Climax
Creative Assembly
Crytek UK
Digi-Guys
Electronic Arts
Eurocom
Eutechnyx Ltd
FreestyleGames
Frontier
Frozenbyte
Geomerics
Gusto Games
Headstrong Games
Hothouse Creations
Idle Creations
Ignition London
Jagex
Juice Games
Keen Games
Kuju
nDreams
Nintendo - Japan
Outso
Playfish
Playground Games
Poly Assets United Inc
Psychotron
Rare-Microsoft Games
Real Time Worlds
Rebellion Games
Related Designs
Reloaded Productions
Rockstar North
Slinky Pictures
Sony-London Studio
Sony-Cambridge Studio
Splash Damage
Supermassive Games
Traveller's Tales
Ubisoft (Singapore)
Zoe Mode
Arch Vis
ArcMedia
AVR London
BAM Design
Build
Crystal CG
Last Pixel
Miller Hare
PreConstruct
Real Visual
Rock Hunter
Smoothe
Square Edge
Tiger X
Uniform
V-Real
Vyonyx
Other
Autonomy
Bentley Motors
Burrows CGI
The Creative Partnership
Dialectyx
Douglas Fisher
Firedog Design
Fusion Medical Animation
HMX Media
MediaSphere Ltd
Random 42
Sparkle Media
Taylor James
Tekuchi
Wilma Studios
thank you very much but its not really opic related
but often enough when i've been tutoring i met people working as teaching or IT or whatever staff at those schools. Not all schools, but some and i've been teaching on quite a few, though i'd call myself a very bad tacher.
It is great to see some success stories coming from colleges but PolyCount still did a lot of work with those very students as from what I've read on the forums many students keep saying their teachers forwarded them to these forums to get more help with their assignments/projects, but it is nice news.
You need to create a login, we have also added facebook login as a quick solution.http://3dhit.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=14971&st=0
Holly Crap, I have not looked on that thread in a while, Mario only graduated a couple of years ago!
http://www.mariomaruska.co.uk/
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Hell ya, I tell the students to use forums all the time! I think they are the best resource any one can use when learning. They would be crazy not to use a resource like Polycount, Uni teaching is only 10-5pm.
So yeah, thanks Polycount for training up my students you get 50% of the credit
its also what i always do, get your ressources! i will never teach zbrush better than pixos classrooms, so i prefer not to do beginner classes in ANY software but rather show them my workflows, show them things they might not get as easily on the net, something thats worth more in production than just knowing where which button is.
See what the students think about how the course helped them in this video
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I just started learning. I'm a bit scared by the stats, but I think I'm making a presumption that it's just like rolling dice and getting lucky, rather than having diligence pay off.
Okay this is my last analogy,
I would simply take you to "The French Laundry in Yountville, California"
Best Wishes,
Neil
P.S. Did I say Frank Victoria joined the UHAnimation team this week after 12 years at Weta http://www.wetanz.com/frank-victoria/
Schools like AI basically accept anybody who is willing to sign their name on the financial aid papers. As a result most of their students end up being people who are behind the curve in both motivation and skill, as well as carrying serious misconceptions about what game development is actually like.
This wouldn't be a problem if the schools were willing to grind the students to the bone with work to rapidly improve their skillset but they don't because if you make school too hard the students will drop out and then you won't be able to get further tuition from them.
To add insult to injury they're often given poor quality educations to begin with because in order for the school to improve their graduating employment stats, graduates who couldn't get jobs in studios are sometimes given teaching positions at the school. So the next wave of students gets taught by the prior wave of graduates who weren't good enough to get jobs anywhere else.
Some of the more well meaning instructors may try to direct their students to sites like Polycount to improve their work. But being that their students are beginners whose work is probably toward the bottom end of the quality spectrum they become too intimidated to post, depriving themselves of vital feedback and reality checks needed to grow them as artists. So they coast along with minimal effort, comparing themselves to their other weaker classmates thinking "I'm doing pretty good" instead of comparing themselves to the actual industry workers and skilled people who post here. Eventually graduating with a meaningless degree and a portfolio filled with half assed school projects.
This was my exact experience half the teachers didnt know squat, and by the time your knee deep in debt your already halfway through so its better just to finish the get the piece of paper.
It's a shame you cant sue for poor education, them show you a great curriculum and when you actually get into the class you learn nothing and the teachers have no idea what they are talking about or they teach wrong/old methods