Student Clubs/Events/Career night

International Game Developers Association

Career nights are an excellent way to generate interest in your organization. At RPI we tend to invite 3 to 4 game professionals from local game companies. We draw in about 50 people, about double our regular weekly attendance. Each section of development should be covered; game design, art, and programming are the 3 main branches, although if your audience has a lot of musicians, managers, or anything else, you should put thought into which speaker would be most interesting to the group. We ask that each speaker come with a 10-15 minute presentation in the medium of their preference and provide 5 to 10 minutes of Q&A after their presentation. The event should take somewhere near an hour or so, leaving the students time to speak one on one with the speakers.

This kind of event is excellent for the "breaking in" questions, resume questions, and general knowledge of what a professional does every day. Depending on your club makeup you should ask the presenters to tailor their advice, if the audience is made up of seniors trying to get a job soon, portfolio and breaking in might be more helpful than day to day activities.

[edit] Steps to Reproduce

• Step 1: Arrange a room and date for the event.
• Step 2: Invite speakers to the event
• Step 3: Advertise the event on campus
• Step 4: On the day of the event, send a friendly reminder to the speakers detailing where and when the event will be and your contact information incase they need to get in touch. Also ask them to arrive 10 minutes early so that they can prepare themselves.
• Step 5: Arrive to the event half an hour early. If possible, lay out food and beverages. Make sure any technology you are using in the event works properly.
• Step 6: When the event starts, introduce each speaker's name, job title, and notable published credits
• Step 7: Allow the speakers to talk in the order you determined with them before the event began.
• Step 8: After speakers have finished, thank them publicly, and give a round of applause.
• Step 9: Personally thank each person before they leave and invite them to come again.
• Step 10: After the event, address a thank you card to their workplace and put it in the mail or hand deliver it to the company door (if this is appropriate)

--Turgoz 14:43, 20 Dec 2006 (EST)