The SCI building on the USC campus, part of USC's School of Cinematic Arts.
I attend mentorship here with my great friend Jessica Bui! We are often in the Game Innovation Lab, located on the third floor of this grand building.
I attend mentorship here with my great friend Jessica Bui! We are often in the Game Innovation Lab, located on the third floor of this grand building.
My mentorship log is located here!
1. List the contact name, phone number, and organization of the person with whom you volunteered.
- Tracy Fullerton
- Position/Organization: Director, USC Game Innovation Lab
- Phone: 213-740-6981
- Email: tfullerton@cinema.usc.edu
- Elizabeth Swensen
- Position/Organization: Game Lab Research Associate, USC Game Innovation Lab
- Email: swenyo@gmail.com
- Sean Bouchard
- Position/Organization: Game Lab Research Associate, USC Game Innovation Lab
- Email: seanbouchard@gmail.com
Jessica, Tracy, and I.
Jessica, Sean, Elizabeth, and I.
2. What qualified this person as an expert in your topic choice?
Tracy Fullerton is the director of the Game Innovation Lab at USC, as well as a game designer and professor in the Interactive Media Division of USC, a game design program that has ranked as #1 of its kind nationally. Being the director of the lab of this division, she has been involved with numerous projects at USC over the years, working as a game designer or faculty adviser for said projects.These projects include several titles such as The Night Journey and Walden, among many other impressive works. Before her work at USC, Tracy has been involved with several other game developers and interactive studios, including Spiderdance and R/GA Interactive, both of which she was the founder and founding member of, respectively.
Watching Tracy in the lab, she exudes charisma and confidence, yet remains so approachable that it's a breeze to communicate with her. Armed with her friendly nature and incredible skill sets, it's evident how effective of a worker Tracy really is. Tracy and leadership just seem to go together so naturally: the look and role of a leader suit her well. Being both a game designer and educator, she has a plethora of knowledge to share.
Elizabeth Swensen and Sean Bouchard are both game designers and research associates at USC, both of whom are staff in the lab and educators to game design students. Both Elizabeth and Sean attended USC and shared some classes together, both receiving MFAs (Masters of Fine Arts) before going on to work as staff in the lab. While Tracy is considered my primary mentor, as she is the one who approved of mine and Jessica's mentorship at USC, Elizabeth and Sean are often the ones who have stepped up to expose Jessica and I to new learning experiences and activities during our mentorship.
Elizabeth and Sean have displayed their responsibility, diligence, and kindness while with us in the lab, often alternating between their own work and ensuring that we are comfortable and occupied. I often don't see one without the other-- Elizabeth and Sean are partners in the workplace, and subsequently both have an equally heavy influence on my experiences at USC. As game designers themselves, both Elizabeth and Sean have worked on their own projects in the past, individually and as a team, including titles such as The Hatter's Table and Application Crunch. Despite their easy-going and friendly natures, both Sean and Elizabeth are evidently diligent, hard workers: they wholesomely participate in team projects, often offering new ideas and helping to resolve any issues within the project. As former USC students and current game designers, both Sean and Elizabeth are often sharing their wisdom with Jessica and I, for which I'm very thankful for.
Watching Tracy in the lab, she exudes charisma and confidence, yet remains so approachable that it's a breeze to communicate with her. Armed with her friendly nature and incredible skill sets, it's evident how effective of a worker Tracy really is. Tracy and leadership just seem to go together so naturally: the look and role of a leader suit her well. Being both a game designer and educator, she has a plethora of knowledge to share.
Elizabeth Swensen and Sean Bouchard are both game designers and research associates at USC, both of whom are staff in the lab and educators to game design students. Both Elizabeth and Sean attended USC and shared some classes together, both receiving MFAs (Masters of Fine Arts) before going on to work as staff in the lab. While Tracy is considered my primary mentor, as she is the one who approved of mine and Jessica's mentorship at USC, Elizabeth and Sean are often the ones who have stepped up to expose Jessica and I to new learning experiences and activities during our mentorship.
Elizabeth and Sean have displayed their responsibility, diligence, and kindness while with us in the lab, often alternating between their own work and ensuring that we are comfortable and occupied. I often don't see one without the other-- Elizabeth and Sean are partners in the workplace, and subsequently both have an equally heavy influence on my experiences at USC. As game designers themselves, both Elizabeth and Sean have worked on their own projects in the past, individually and as a team, including titles such as The Hatter's Table and Application Crunch. Despite their easy-going and friendly natures, both Sean and Elizabeth are evidently diligent, hard workers: they wholesomely participate in team projects, often offering new ideas and helping to resolve any issues within the project. As former USC students and current game designers, both Sean and Elizabeth are often sharing their wisdom with Jessica and I, for which I'm very thankful for.
3. List three questions for further exploration now that you've completed your summer hours.
1. How much of a balance should one seek to have between creative and technical design skills? (How much of a focus should someone have on sharpening their programming skills, writing abilities, etc.)
2. Generally speaking, how in-depth and critical are key design decisions treated by design teams? (Such as decisions on visuals, narratives, gameplay, etc.)
3. Aside from working directly on their own projects/commissioned projects, what other work experiences do game designers typically have in the game industry?
4. What is the most important thing you gained from this experience? Why?
I've learned quite a bit about what people in the game industry do on a regular now, but I've also learned a lot about the people around me who work in the lab. During a casual sit-down seminar of sorts with graduate students, some of the staff and faculty from the Game Innovation Lab came to talk with USC students about their time as graduate students in the game design program, as well as introduce themselves.
It was a very casual atmosphere. In total, there was only about 25 or so people in the room, and the mood was light and welcoming. As each faculty and staff member went up to introduce themselves to the students, they told them a bit about themselves. One thing that stood out to me was Elizabeth's introduction.
Prior to her time as a student in the game design program at USC, Elizabeth was actually pursuing humanities; specifically, ancient languages. She said that she's always been a person fond of words and languages, so she had never envisioned herself working with anything else-- yet, when she was offered a job at the lab (an opportunity to escape her current work situation, which was quite boring and didn't pay well), she jumped on it immediately. Contrary to what she once believed she would be focusing on in her life, Elizabeth said she fell in love with being able to teach through games (especially when the subject matter involved languages and humanities), and that is one of the primary reasons why she is still working in the lab today.
At that moment, I realized that not everybody has to have years upon years worth of experience in programming and computer sciences; you don't have to be a master at navigating through coding and manipulating scripts to work in the game industry, let alone be a game designer. This was always something I worried about: I worried that without enough experience and skills in programming, I would get nowhere in the game industry. I honestly believed that if I wanted to make it here, I needed to pick those skills up and sharpen them as quickly and as soon as possible. I really thought that was the only way I could achieve my goals, even thought it meant doing something that not all of my heart was in (I've always been a little more interested in the creative aspects of game design, so the technical bits scared me a little). Elizabeth showed me different.
While I still plan on sharpening the skills I do have, and gaining new ones along the way, I don't feel like I have to be the best of the best with technology anymore. I don't necessarily need to be a computer whiz to get my foot in the door of the game industry (as much as it helps). People from all kinds of backgrounds work in this industry, Elizabeth included, and knowing that provides me with a great amount of comfort.
5. What is your senior project topic going to be? How did mentorship help you make your decision? Please explain.
My mentorship thus far at USC in the Game Innovation Lab has been amazing. The people are wonderful, they're all so incredibly kind and welcoming-- I sincerely thank them for that. After all, these are the people that helped to shape my great experiences at USC, and have played such a huge part in making my stay a learning and enjoyable one.
Tracy, Sean, and Elizabeth have all done so much to ensure that I've been able to work and participate in interesting activities, sit and watch insightful team project meetings, and enjoy my time in the lab. Truly, they're very kind and admirable individuals. I'm very grateful to have them as my mentors.
With each passing day at USC, my mentorship has only solidified my decision to make video game design my senior project more and more. I've been able to see how design teams work together and discuss their projects, learn of just how powerful of an industry video games are in the U.S., hear team and individual success stories of previous USC students, and witness how video games really come together under the hard work of a unified team. I've been able to experience virtual reality and a simulated feeling of flying, sit through a California Assembly dedicated to the influence of the game industry, and know what it's like to sit in a team and design and create a physical board game.
I've learned so much: about the ups and downs of the industry, the good and bad times people working to create video games will face, and the complex and fascinating processes designers everywhere work through nearly every day.
Game design has always been a key interest of mine, despite previously having no legitimate experiences in the field to help me decide if it's really a place for me. My experiences in mentorship both now and in the many days to come are surely going to help me reach a concrete decision for my future.
