Full Sail Stories
Published Dec 09, 2019
Grads Return to Campus Recruiting for Epic Games
Grads from multiple degree programs returned to campus to interview students for internships and full-time roles.
Graduates and Epic Games team members Amanda Sweaton, Aaron Eady, and Cory Kolek recently visited campus to offer advice to students and conduct interviews for positions with the North Carolina-based game developer.
Epic Games, responsible for popular titles such as Fortnite and Gears of War, looked to Full Sail students and soon-to-be graduates for internships in their engineering, design, and art departments. Beyond just internships, Epic was also interviewing candidates for full-time support engineer positions.
Jonathan Fitzpatrick, a Lead Support Engineer with Epic, shares how Full Sail’s Game Development curriculum is producing just the type of hires the developer is seeking. He noted that Full Sail's development programs are not only focused on the latest programming languages, but that students here are also taught stalwart legacy languages like C++. "There are a diminishing number of schools teaching C++ and they're abandoning it for things like C# and Java," he says. "And it makes it much harder to hire because people who are trained in that have a really hard time getting into this."
Beyond technical skills, grads shared what they think the Full Sail education model does to prepare students for jobs with big-time developers.
Aaron, a Game Design and Development graduate who currently serves as a Senior Technical Designer and Gameplay Programmer for Epic, recalls how his time at Full Sail prepared him. "When I took all these courses, it was amazing to me how much it was like work,” says Aaron. “We were here eight, ten hours a day doing our thing and figuring out how to become game developers."
An emphasis on community and teamwork also plays a key role in helping developers prepare for the industry says Game Art grad Amanda Sweaton. "Mistakes will happen sometimes and if you're with a good team, they're going to empower you and help you fix it as a team," she says. "I think Full Sail helped prepare me for that."
Cory Kolek, who studied Game Development in his time at Full Sail, encourages students to aim high when applying at developers like Epic Games. "Don't undersell yourself when you're looking for that first job," says Cory. "The first job is going to be the hardest one to get."