Lots
of people pursue a degree for the sole purpose of obtaining a job in a specific
industry. The courses students take to earn that degree have plenty to do with the
practice. Yet, I have the feeling that a piece of paper mounted on a wall isn’t
enough to be good at a life-changing career. It’s like putting on a black belt
and saying you are a master at martial arts. The item itself gives you no
power. Only the lessons you learn from earning it are worth anything.
How
does this relate to your degree? Recently I learned that in order to truly
learn something, you have to practice it. Let’s use the gaming degree as an
example. Some of you want to be artists, some maybe want to get better at
programming. In order to become good, you don’t just read the textbooks or the
notes you write down; you improve by actually doing the work.
Want
to be a concept artist, but your drawing is sub-par? Study other artists all
you want, but that will hardly help you. You need to look into what concept art
is, then try to replicate that kind of work. Search for examples of character
or environment concept art. It can be for anything from games to movies to TV
shows. Now, draw exactly what you see. Yes, you are imitating someone else’s
work, but this is for practice. Once you fully grasp what it feels like to do
concept work, you can start making your own.
Now
to make this a habit. Do something like this once per day for at least an hour.
Over time it will become easier to do. It might become so easy that you hardly
have to erase anything and can draw confidently without hesitation. They say
that it takes over ten thousand hours of practice to become an expert at
something. Well, at a rate of one hour per day, it will take you over thirty
years to reach that level. Don’t worry about being an expert. Just be concerned
with improving yourself in the present so that it’s easier in the future.
Same
goes for programmers. I personally don’t know how one would practice scripting,
but a similar method to what I mentioned above will work. Heck, if you really
like what you’re doing, spend more than an hour on your daily work. If you find
that you don’t like the work you do, maybe this isn’t what you really want. As
for me, I dislike programming and I can only stand to do two dimensional
drawings. My concept work isn’t very good, but I would like to get better at it
if only to be able to make one piece of work that serves as an example for an
artstyle. What I really enjoy doing is writing stuff like this and writing out
game design documents. Granted, I have only jotted down ideas and haven’t made
a real game design document, but once I find an idea I can work with, I will
build it into something presentable, thus why I try to write documents for one
hour a day.
