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Spring 2006 Class
Spring 2006 Contest

Spring 2007 Contest

08.May.07 Lecture 12
Final Exam, presentation preparation, career

Motivate

7 Days Left

We are in the final week. If you are behind, it is time to down scope your game. Focus on the game completeness list.

I'm impressed with the progress you have made and think you should all be proud of what you have accomplished.

Presentation Hints

#1 Be confident and humble

You have learned how to build something that very few Chapman students can build. You should be proud of your game and show off the work that you've done. You should also know you don't know everything. An audience will like you more if you know (and sometimes demonstrate) you are not perfect.

Don't be nervous. You will survive no matter what happens. Sometimes demos crash and burn, keep working around it, everyone in this audience has been there. Life will go on, opportunities will present themselves and you will be a success at whatever you set your mind to. You are only guaranteed to have set backs. Just relax and enjoy it. The plan for your life will unfold with or without the nerves and it's much more fun to just enjoy it.

Each of the audience members were in your shoes once (or will be in about 10 minutes!). Know that they are all rooting for you to succeed.

Visualize Steve Jobs.

#2 Talk about what you know and learned

If your game is incomplete, be confident in the parts that you did create and explain how difficult the process was and the steps moving forward. No one expects a game that is ready to sit on a store shelf. Talking about a crazy mistake you made or a super simple problem you fought with while developing can make a great story and show your humanity. Everyone can relate to a tough problem and enjoy hearing there was eventually a solution.

Start out by letting them know who you are. Please don't use this order and add some items yourself, but things you could talk about are:

-Your name
-What year you are (very important for seniors to say they are graduating next week!)
-Why you took the class
-What kinds of games you like to play and how that relates to the game you created
-What you thought you would get out of the class and what you really got out of it
-What makes Chapman unique
-Where you are from
-What you plan to do when you graduate
-What part of the game development process you are most interested in
-Thank other students who helped you.
-I spent X number of hours on this game and it still isn't done!
-What was hardest/easiest for you to do on the project.
-My game just isn't fun, but I know how I would do it differently.
-My game just isn't fun, does anyone have ideas to make it better?
-This game just plain sucks and this is why. That will get people's attention!
-I learned I don't really want to be a programmer. I want to be a <designer, modeller, animator, producer> and this is the stuff I created for this project in that regard. You should still have a game for the final project, but this would be perfectly acceptable in front of the industry audience.
-At the end make a commitment to finish the game after class
-How you think games are shaping society
-Why you think Torque is the right or wrong choice for teaching (if you think it's wrong you better have a good alternative and why that would be better/easier, you should probably debate me on this before you bring it up in class).
-Maybe pass around flyers/business cards where they can download the game or see more information on it.
-burn a bunch of cds with labels on them to hand out. Make sure your resume(s) are on the cds too. A portfolio will get you a job faster than anything except a friend or relative.
-I would like to thank you all for coming and supporting Chapman. Are there any questions?

#3 Practice your presentation in front of a mirror or with a friend.

It feels really odd and takes a lot of getting used to, but this will make your presentations better. I typically take a bunch of bullet points and have them with me when I present. Many times these bullet points are slides. This keeps me on track and helps me remember the order. No more than five short sentence bullet items per slide.

#4 Make sure your game is working on the instructor console.

The biggest mistake you can make will be to setup the game as part of the demo or demo into parts unknown. Unless you want to demonstrate the installer itself. Have it pre-installed on the instructor console. Get this done early as there will probably be a rush for the console as presentation time approaches.

If you want to demonstrate into parts unknown, wait until the end and announce that you are doing that and get everyone prepared for a spectacular success or crash and burn. Either way it will be entertaining.

Have a backup plan and a quick reinstall plan if something really goes wrong.

Once you graduate

Stay with your first (salaried) job at least 2 years and no more than 5 years. Unless something that pays a lot more comes along before 2 years is over, but don't change more than once in the first two to five years.

Buy a house. If necessary, use roommates to pay the mortgage.

Within your first six months, start putting 6% of your salary into the company 401k plan and don't touch it until you are 65. The tax savings is a huge advantage and after 10 years the amount of money will be unbelievable. Place 70% of the funds into the three riskiest grown funds. 20% into the middle risk and 10% into the low risk. Send your kids to college and enjoy your retirement.

Keep in touch with your classmates and work colleagues, they are your key to future employment.

Always have a hobby or something fun to work on on the side.

Give to receive.

Job finding tips

http://hotjobs.yahoo.com/jobseeker/tools/ept/careerArticlesPost.html?post=108

Thursday and Saturday help?

I know it's crunch time. Would anyone like me to come in on Thursday evening the help answer questions? How about Sunday afternoon?

Thanks

I want to thank each and everyone of you for an amazing semester. There are always topics I want think I missed and hope you learned something usefull in this class. I'm throughly impressed with the talents in the class and proudly say the next few years will see some of the best Computer Science classes ever. If I can ever help you in any way, please feel free to contact me.