FIEA SE Trip

Wednesday April 8, 2009

Technical Director Tom Carbone and I started on a small recruiting trip through North Carolina in search of programmers. Yesterday we visited East Carolina University; today we are in Chapel Hill; tonight we are at Duke and tomorrow at Clemson.

ECU yesterday was a great experience. We touched down in the tiny Pitt-Greenville airport and alas, one piece of my luggage was lost. Bad start.

But we took our rental car and found some food at the Cookout, a burger/hot dog/milk shake kind of place.

We headed through the small town of Greenville and quickly found campus. It is a beautiful southern campus with magnolia trees and dark red brick buildings everywhere. We went to the Career Center and talked with some advisors there about the school and our program. I told the associate director I would send her some information.

We headed to the CS department and met Qin, a professor there who was organizing the talk for 7 that night. She was friendly and introduced us to several of her colleagues and the department chair.

They were warm and welcoming. We ate dinner before the talk at the Japan Inn, a good Japanese restaurant. We also ate with a CS student who had just defended his senior project named Chris. He was tired but happy he had finished.

The talk went well and lasted about 2 hours. We had 35 or so in the audience and both faculty and students asked a lot of questions.

We left ECU about 9 and went back to the airport to find my luggage. Turns out someone else h had taken my luggage. After contacting them, we drove into a nearby neighborhood and picked up the bag. I was very happy to have my clothes for the trip.

We got into the hotel late last night and today we talk at UNC at 2 p.m. and at Duke at 6 p.m. Should be a great day.

Will update again soon, travel permitting.

Todd

Thursday April 9, 2009

Today was a doubleheader of two of NC’s most famous basketball schools, UNC and Duke. After a late night into Chapel Hill, we woke bleary eyed at a Hampton Inn. Tom and I answered email and made phone calls first thing before heading to campus. We came in on a very crowded South Street.

The campus is absolutely beautiful with old, brick buildings and beautiful green lawns and open spaces everywhere. The Weather was so beautiful and the campus was crowded and active. We quickly learned that a major problem on campus is parking. There was nowhere to park. We circled in one public lot and then decided to eat some burritos at a place called Carbabritos. It had a funky, hippy interior and a great menu. We both had fish burritos. Very tasty.

We finally found a parking spot on the Raleigh Street. Tom did an illegal u-turn and pulled off an amazing parallel parking job just to get the spot. Then we had to beg for some change from some unfortunate passersby. Even with all of our efforts, we would barely have enough time on the meter to finish the talk. We walked across the stately campus with all the trees in bloom. Incredible. We finally found the Brooks building after walking through the north quad. Donna met us and took her into her class of 7 or so.

The presentation went well and the kids asked some great questions. Afterwards we stopped at the bookstore and marveled at all of the championship gear. I got some shorts and Tom bought a shirt.

We left and started to head to Duke. I had forgotten an important folder on campus so we had to circle back but then left without finding it.

We quickly drove to Duke. We parked and headed to the building. Tom’s original contact was sick so we were greeted by Susan, who is a professor in the CS department. We finally found the department and headed in. There were only three people in the room with 10 minutes until the talk. Then the room filled up. It was an ACM talk and was nicely run and attended.

The talk went great. Everyone asked questions and they brought in pizza. Lots of student seemed interested in FIEA and the game industry. We both were talking to students for 20 minutes afterwards and we met another faculty member who teaches game classes there. We left Duke and ate at Mcallister’s Deli. Good food.

Now we’re driving 2 hours to Charlotte, where we’re staying the night. Then up in the morning and another two hours until Clemson. Can’t wait to get there.

Saturday April 11, 2009

We drove through pouring rain to Clemson. Clemson is a bit out the way but a beautiful campus. We met our contact Brian at the student union. He took us with the department head Don and Brian’s wife Jackie to the country club for lunch. A nice buffet was served and we talked about all the connections we had in our work. After lunch we were given a tour of Clemson’t Digital Production Arts by Steven, a student who had started at Full Sail. He knew about us and UCF.

The program really does a nice job teaching technical artists and has had some success putting students onto some very well known films. We saw a demo reel and talked to a faculty member about the difficulty of teaching artists and programmers. Our mutual challenges sounded very familiar.

We then got to meet with 4 or 5 students and talked to them about the industry. They asked some great questions. Then at 3:30 the talk started and about 30 people watched it in a crowded seminar room. The students and faculty were very sharp and asked some excellent questions. I think all got a lot out of the talk. Or at least I hope so. Clemson had really treated us nice and I appreciate their hospitality.

We drove to Greenville where I would stay with some friends and Tom would stay with family in the area. A long flight the next day and we were home. It was a great trip.