Studio and University partnerships in education
polycounter lvl 17
I'd like to hear folks' thoughts on studio / university partnerships in education:
-how common are they
-how successful / unsuccessful are they for either party (what do studios see as their incentives in teaming up with a university)? The obvious benefits to the university would be a quality program to produce quality graduates. For the industry as a whole, studio groomed graduates would make for a more prepared talent pool. But what localized incentives do these studios have in forming such partnerships? First dibbs? Fresh blood that already knows the way that studio does things? Access to buildings, labs, grants, etc?
I'd love to hear from folks who might have past experience coordinating such partnerships, teaching or mentoring them, or who might be a product of such. The only one I'm remotely familiar with is The Guildhall.
I'm also wanting to gadge studio interest for this sort of partnership in south Texas, as I work for a four year university that is currently exploring this very idea, to compliment it's budding gaming program.
-how common are they
-how successful / unsuccessful are they for either party (what do studios see as their incentives in teaming up with a university)? The obvious benefits to the university would be a quality program to produce quality graduates. For the industry as a whole, studio groomed graduates would make for a more prepared talent pool. But what localized incentives do these studios have in forming such partnerships? First dibbs? Fresh blood that already knows the way that studio does things? Access to buildings, labs, grants, etc?
I'd love to hear from folks who might have past experience coordinating such partnerships, teaching or mentoring them, or who might be a product of such. The only one I'm remotely familiar with is The Guildhall.
I'm also wanting to gadge studio interest for this sort of partnership in south Texas, as I work for a four year university that is currently exploring this very idea, to compliment it's budding gaming program.
Replies
The program is a 6 month program/2 quarter class project between students and SOE. Students are to design a level based around one of SOE IP and create the level in the Unreal 3 engine. Every other week SOE would send over artists from the project such as EverQuest or FreeRealms to review the work of the students and give them feedback on what to improve/how to bring it more in line with SOE art style. At the end of the 6month project students are to present there work in front of a large group of SOE members such as leads on the diffrent SOE teams/SOE Art Director/President of SOE.
The class students take generally breaks up the class into two teams. There is a team lead of the project who is the only person to present in front of SOE during the weeks they come to school and at the final presentation. The leader must also oversee the entire project, make sure other students are completing work on time/up to the quality level/style of SOE. They also are require to grade the students on the team, are the only ones who can relay complaints about team members to the teacher of the class and the only ones who can fire a team member from the project.
Presenting in front of SOE is not a guarantee either, if the members of SOE who come by the school to give feedback dont feel the students work is up to snuff they will not be able to present, this will of course hurt there grade. This actually happened during the class I took it. The other team sadly was plagued by way to many slackers and they were not able to present there final project. It was a shame as there were two people on that team that tried to carry everyone but it was too little too late.
SOE each year has summer internships, 4 spots are open for artists each year. I was fortunate enough to get one as was the leader of my team who was not only my roommate but one of my extreamly good friends. I interned on EQ1 and he was interning on EQ2. Two of my other good friends from AI also got the other internship spots due to the work they did for there project based on FreeRealms and joined the FreeRealms team.
I found the Mentionship Program and following Internship Program amazing. Gave great hands on experience in a pipeline somewhat similar to that of a real studio with required milestones, working with new team members, feedback from hire ups, having to hit a quality bar/style, working with team members who didnt contribute much at all, crunching because I had a lot of pride in the work we did/present, and with the risk of the project getting canned and not presenting it. Our teams project was actually shown off at SIGGRAPH and GDC which was pretty cool. But that might have been just a "hey look how awesome AI/SOE is" thing, not sure.
My internship eventually lead to an offer to stay on with SOE as a contract artists which I actually declined to work on my folio and shortly get on with Bungie. My friend who was interning on EQ2 joined on as a full time contract artist for the team and SOE helped him get his visa as he was originally from Mexico. My two other friends who got onto the FreeRealms teams also got on as contract artists and one just finished up work on the recent Clone Wars Adventure. Overall for all of us it was an extreamly benifical program and I am so glad AI/SOE offered it.