At the center is my mentor, Tracy Fullerton. On the right is my dear friend Clerisse Cornejo, who is also a student of this mentorship. I am at the left.
In order are Clerisse, myself, Elizabeth Swensen, and Sean Bouchard.
1. List the contact name, phone number, and organization of the person with whom you volunteered.
- Primary Mentor
- Tracy Fullerton (Associate Professor and Chair, Interactive Media Division Electronic Arts Endowed Chair, Interactive Entertainment)
- Work Phone: 213-740-6981
- Organization: University of Southern California, School of Cinematic Arts; Game Innovation Lab
- Secondary Mentors (are present when Primary is unavailable)
- Sean Bouchard
- E-mail: seanbouchard@gmail.com
- Organization: USC, School of Cinematic Arts; Game Innovation Lab
- Elizabeth Swensen
- E-mail: swenyo@gmail.com
- Organization: USC, School of Cinematic Arts; Game Innovation Lab
2. What qualified this person as an expert in your topic choice?
My mentors are all affiliated with USC's Interactive Media & Games Division, which according to The Princeton Review, happens to have the highest-ranking Game Design program in the United States. This information alone gives a good inkling of if how qualified my mentors are. Not only is Tracy Fullerton a seasoned experimental game designer, she is also the Director of the USC Game Innovation Lab, author of the textbook Game Design Workshop, and Associate Professor of the Interactive Media Division. These, of course, only scratch the surface of what she has done in this subject; before joining USC, she was the president/founder of Spiderdance, Inc., an interactive television game developer. Fullerton has also contributed to the production of recent games such as The Night Journey and Walden.
Sean Bouchard and Elizabeth Swensen also deserve to be recognized. They both have put a lot of effort of acting as our mentors when Fullerton is not present, despite the fact that Fullerton was the one we had officially cemented the mentorship with. Both are staff of the Game Innovation Lab in USC who love designing educational games, but their talents are not limited to those genres. Both Swensen and Bouchard have received Masters of Fine Arts (MFAs) and Interactive Media, and are currently working on a game that simulates the field work of researching primitive life forms beneath the earth. Swensen and Bouchard have their own websites with information of their game productions, respectively here and here.
3. List three questions for further exploration now that you've completed your summer hours.
- In depth, how does one best combine esoteric ideas into video games so that they can be produced to help give the public a higher understanding of those ideas? (If I wanted to teach something such as bio-medical engineering, what is the best way to do that?)
- In general, if I had an idea of what I wanted a video game to be, how should I begin designing it?
- How much programming experience does one need to be able to properly create a video game?
4. What is the most important thing you gained from this experience? Why?
There was one fact I remember that was conveyed during our introductory tour in the Game Innovation Lab, and that was that the objectives of video games can go beyond just entertainment. This was something I was already aware, evidenced clearly through educational games, but I never really thought of it any more thoroughly than that. That is until I had mentioned talked my conflict about deciding on whether I would like to pursue computer science for gaming or go for bio-medical engineering, be it for Senior Project or college. Elizabeth and Sean had then reassuringly explained to me that, not only has the gaming industry boomed in recent years, the genres of its products are utterly vast. There are some games have been created specifically for more than entertainment, that aren't just the mainstream, console games (and I don't mean to disregard the values of those either); some are indirectly and directly therapeutic in both mind and physicality. Some have been designed to guide students the college application process. In a more specific and relevant case for me, some people have even made some that integrate the basis of bio-medical engineering and teach it or even help the patients in need of such engineering. It can either be an art form or something very scientific, and can branch into anything.
5. What is your senior project topic going to be? How did mentorship help you make your decision? Please explain.
As I had mentioned, one of the dilemmas I fell into this summer in seeking a mentorship was deciding what topic I wanted - game design or bio-medical engineering? I had actually managed to attain a prospective permanent mentor in the latter choice as well. I knew I wanted to spend some of the summer properly weighing the options. As evidenced in this post, I had chosen game design, but not for the reason that I thought it was superior in any way or that I thought it was even more interesting than the other. However, the very first day of my game design mentorship had been quick to capture my heart, especially given its location of the USC campus. I know very well that pursuing game design is a risky business, given the rapid expansion of its industry and competition. Tracy, Sean, and Elizabeth have been very amazing and dedicated individuals. Shadowing the meetings, seeing the complex process that goes behind the things that shaped a good part of my childhood, and glimpsing the teamwork in those productions that groups at IPoly can only dream of made the idea of game design was exciting. In a rare opportunity, we were able to visit a Congress of Assemblymen that talked about the impact of both the gaming industry in the economy and hear the success stories that all began in USC. Just thinking about what it would mean to pursue something like this after graduation is both scary and thrilling.
It's all a very romantic mindset, and I'm aware of that. One can strive to be a game designer and flop in the industry, as a writer or an artist might. If I were to pursue something such as bio-medical engineering, I would have a much more steady and sure path in life that doesn't rely on the social interests of people. I may not know about bio-medical engineering as much as I know about game design right now, but it is part of a field I know will always be necessary and constantly take in all the individuals who willingly go into it. Game design is not.
Which is all the more reason I ultimately chose game design. After all, the purpose of the Senior Project isn't to dive into a topic I am certain to go for in college. It's meant to explore something of our interest, and if I dive into it only to realize that game design may not be the right choice of a career path for me in the future, then I will have learned a lesson and choose bio-medical engineering or any other form of computer science. There's not much to lose, because I'm committing to a Senior Project, not declaring a major. I want to have a taste of the industry that is precarious for the young individual who is still deciding on what they want. It'll help me decide if it will be right for me in college. I have already been assured of a keen interest in bio-medical engineering when I had volunteered for the Red Cross and through other means. I even have a constant interest for the general field of computer science rather than the specific category of game design. And if a game design is not my path in college, I rather realize it now than to pursue then regret it later.
(Or, I can learn to love both somehow, and fall into another dilemma, but that's a problem for another day that might not exist.)
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