Learning the Ropes in VR Development
t's the back-to-school season, so we thought we'd give centre stage to our industrious intern. We hope you enjoy his update on what it's like for a junior programmer to join an established team of coders and get stuck into VR games development. For anyone wondering what it's like to get your first break in the videogames industry, this blog's for you!
First of all I would like to give my greetings to all the wonderful readers of this blog.
My name is George Alexandru Ciobanita, I am 21 years old, I'm from Romania and I study Computer Games (Software Development) at Southampton Solent University. When I’m not busy I enjoy spending time with my friends, I play videogames both old (Hexen) and new (Enter The Gungeon), surf the internet and much more…
…and now I am currently an intern at nDreams. HURRAY!
Obviously the above is a bit of a giveaway of the fact that I do not have much industry experience, nor have I ever worked in an environment where there are so many different people. This of course had me pretty tense in my first few days working here, my mind was filled with questions, “What’s this? What’s that? Why are my shoes the wrong way around?”
Before I started the internship I was eagerly waiting on it to begin, I was so glad I could finally get some proper knowledge of the industry not just from my tutors, but from my own experiences in the company which will most likely help me a lot once I get back to studying and getting my degree.
However, feeble feelings such as stress or fear quickly disappear when you are surrounded by so much positivity coming from everybody in the office. It is quite hard to be unhappy when everyone cooperates in sharing their own knowledge, experiences and insight in order for me to learn and in turn function better both as a member of the company, even if temporary, but also as a future programmer.
I consider myself a lucky person when it comes to this internship. Not only do I get a chance to learn about Virtual Reality directly from people who develop for it. The internship started very close to the July launch date for The Assembly, meaning that I had the opportunity to see for my own eyes how a company, and more importantly, a developer team, acts and reacts to different changes in the project during its final push towards release.
Another thing which made my time worth it was the chance to talk and experience other areas of the industry. I had a chance to test out, and even report a few bugs myself, for The Assembly, had the opportunity to try out some coding and the possibility to chat with people that fill in different roles in the team, such as artists or designers.
Before we finish reading this blog post and go our own ways I would like to give some advice to people who aim to enter different industries, not just the games industry. If possible, always try and aim to get an internship. It may seem hard at first but the first step is not taken then you cannot follow up.
An internship is not just a period of work to be taken just as a taster, it is a period of learning, an opportunity to ask questions and learn from people who are ready to dedicate a bit of their time to give you the answers. You will get a chance to improve not just your working skills but also your social skills as well.
As I end this blog post here I would like to thank the people who have spent their time reading it, and I would also like the thank the people in the office who I am sure will help me have an even better experience for the remainder of this internship.
Goodbye, take care, and have a positive attitude, it goes a long way!
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