Welcome to my site!

Let me tell you a bit about myself.

Education

In 2010, I received my Bachelor of Arts degree at Western Connecticut State University in Applied Computing: Gaming. In 2011, I received my Master of Science degree at Full Sail University in Game Design.  I have some knowledge of programming, but my main focus is now design and production. I hope to either become a video game designer or a producer when I enter the video game industry.

Through my master’s degree, I took a class on quality assurance. In that class I learned how to bug test and follow a test plan. I also learned how to use Jira’s bug tracking software. Later in my degree I had an internship with EA and GarageGames through Full Sail University. The internship with GarageGames furthered my knowledge of test plans and QA. The emphasis in the beginning was on bug testing their Torque 3D engine. At this point I learned how to use Hansoft’s bug tracking software.

In regards to production, that is where the focus of my degree was. Many classes were focused on game production and project management. There was also an emphasis on working in a team and leading a team. Both internships allowed me to practice my project management skills by leading small groups of students either on QA tasks or production tasks. Through classes and the internships I have gained knowledge of Hansoft’s project management capabilities, Basecamp, and Microsoft Project. Of the three, I find Hansoft to be the easiest to work with since it combines what is good about Basecamp and Microsoft Project.

As for design, both classes and my internship with GarageGames introduced me to the basic concepts of how to design a game and what makes a good game. In class projects I was able to practice designing games and writing design documents. In the internship, I tried my hand at designing a tutorial for GarageGames. As it is under NDA and may not have been completed by subsequent interns after my graduation, I cannot place this in a portfolio. However, if anyone has anyone questions, they should feel free to contact me in any way they desire to ask for the contact information of the instructors who oversaw my internships. I would be happy to provide any information needed.

Employment

Since March of 2012, I have been working at Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company. I was hired as a Project Technician for the IT department. At MassMutual, a Project Technician is in between a project manager and an administrative assistant. My job consists of aiding the project managers with minutes taking, document creation, information gathering, and anything else they may need to help them manage their projects.

Beyond aiding project managers, I also run a resource gathering meeting where project managers can present their projects to a group of resource managers, in order to obtain representatives from all necessary areas in the organization. This is a weekly meeting which I organize.

My main task at the moment is maintaining a massive schedule for an Enterprise wide conversion to Windows 7 and Office 2010. This requires scheduling employees for the upgrade, communicating the impending upgrade, and marking them complete after the upgrade. I also keep track of those employees who cannot upgrade due to application conflicts with the Windows 7 environment.

Finally, an ongoing task of mine is to provide metrics for a monthly business review meeting for the senior leadership in IT. This requires sifting through status reports, reading phase end reviews, and interviewing the project managers. The information is then presented in a coherent spreadsheet with accompanying graphs.

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Now, how about some personal information?

Since my interest is in the video game industry, it makes sense to talk about my favourite genres and games. For genres, my favourites include action/adventure, stealth, simulation, and roleplaying. For games, my favourites include Assassin’s Creed 2, Fable 2 & 3, Bayonetta, LA Noire, and the Sims series. I have also gotten into using the Xbox 360 Kinect.

Other interests include reading sci-fi/fantasy books, watching movies, and cross stitching. I love reading books especially. My favourites right now are the Hunger Games Trilogy, Game of Thrones, and nearly anything by Orson Scott Card or Terry Brooks.

Well, that’s me. Take a look around my site, check out my work, and thank you for stopping  by!