Ian Paul Hathaway BSc: Computer Games Design & Production

www.nhsbsa.nhs.uk

Employer’s Profile:

• Provides services for the NHS in England • Including prescription processing, exemption and pre-payment certificate issuing, NHS pensions, EHIC card issuing and NHS logistics • Based in Newcastle upon Tyne and various other locations

Placement Details:

• Industrial Placement Student • £15,610 per annum • 27 days holiday + bank holidays • Flexitime

My Role:

• Supporting the PPC database and related applications • Involvement in various software development • Present my experiences to peers and seniors

What I’ve learned and developed:

• How to use SQL and Java 2 computer languages • A better understanding of working in teams • Development of time management skills • Development of communication skills – especially public speaking

Greatest Problems and achievements:

• Gave presentations to senior members of organisation • Difficulty of learning the basics for the Java 2 language

Advice for those looking for a placement:

• Keep looking and applying and don’t give up! It’s well worth the experience

Placement Information

Job Title: Application Support (Skip Team) Salary: £12000 per annum Holidays: 25 days per annum Location: Long Benton, Newcastle Time: 37.5 hours p/w flexi

Perks:

•Gym discounts •Organised Football •Golf access •Metro Radio Arena tickets •Newcastle/Sunderland matches

New / Improved Skills:

•SQL •UNIX •C / C++ •Perl •Vi Editor •Problem solving

About Accenture

Accenture is a global management consulting, technology services and outsourcing company. Committed to delivering innovation, Accenture collaborates with its clients to help them become high-performance businesses and governments. With deep industry and business process expertise, broad global resources and a proven track record, Accenture can mobilize the right people, skills and technologies to help clients improve their performance.

Job Description

You will be working on the National Insurance Recording System (version 2) or NIRS2. It is one of the largest databases in the world. You will be working within the Live Application Support group, as date integrity, skips , or build or testing.

You will liaise with other teams from the Newcastle offices to write scripts and exercises that will alter a system that has a NI fund of approximately £300 billion. An ideal opportunity for a student looking to improve programming and problem solving skills.

Sean Waite – Computer Games Design & Production 32

Daniel Harvey Computer Games Design and Production

Jagex Ltd.

Independent Games Company

Working for Jagex is guaranteed to be a unique experience. You don’t have to be the world’s best to be considered. As long as you care about making great games, and have the potential and desire to be awesome, then Jagex is right for you.

It is a company born of gamers, with a passion.

Jagex is lucky enough to sit in Cambridge, a rich and cultured city, and although I walked to the office every day, the free bicycle ambulance service meant cycling in was just as popular. In just one year I worked in Player Support, Community Management and even in Quality Assurance. What other company gives people the chance to grow and show their potential with such ease?

The important thing to take note of at Jagex, is that you are not handed a great year on a silver platter, you are expected to put the effort in, but if you are determined you can achieve a lot. I have managed people and projects, and I now have my name down in RuneScape history, having tested some of the biggest updates to date.

Make no mistake, Jagex are a company born of IT. Your day to day work will encompass all manner of computer-related activities (unless your lucky enough to have to travel on business), but despite using a lot of in-house software, there are always opportunities for training and self-development, or improving on existing skills. I have come out of my placement Jagex with a plethora of skills I can bring to future employers, from public speaking to data mining, and even to animation.

• • • • • Perks: Free private healthcare Free gym membership Free fruit Free bicycle repair • Flexible hours • Fantastic facilities (see up and right) Legendary company jollies Whether you are thinking of applying at Jagex, or anywhere, my advice is to be yourself, and give it your all. If you are the sort of person Jagex would like to see then you don’t need to milk it, they will see the potential. There will be challenges when you are competing against other people for a placement, but my advice is to be true to yourself. I didn’t have a lot going for me when I sent in my application, but something caught their eye, and I was able to finish my placement working in Quality Assurance for the biggest free-to-play MMO in the world. Not bragging...

Martin Stanger – Games Programming.

Reflections: A Ubisoft Studio.

Driver: San Francisco.

• Corporate gym, discounted games, 20 days holiday.

• Source code management, Toolchain, Jira.

• Coding standards, file versioning, release procedures.

Tools Programming.

• C++, Managed C++, C#/.NET, MAX Script, Lua Script, MFC.

• HCI – UI.

• Improving the pipeline.

Mission Design/Scripting.

• Lua Script.

• Single player missions.

• Mission flow and logic.

• AI, GUI and audio.

• Weekly game play-through.

Advice.

• Good quality game demo.

• Website with portfolio.

• Tailor your application.

• Apply multiple places.