Month 2: Calculus, Trig, Programming 1 and My 1st Game Jam

I have just completed my second month at Full Sail University during which I had two classes, Calculus & Trigonometry which was instructed by Shane Saeidi, and Programming 1 instructed by Doug Monroe. Both classes required us to learn a lot about a complex subject in a crammed amount of time, especially because it was December, when everyone gets a two week vacation (longest break you get at Full Sail) at the end of the month so the workload was even more jammed.

Doug and Shane both were excellent in their jobs to teach us the material. Doug found ways to help us relate to the tedious fundamentals of C++, and Shane would teach us the important parts of Calculus while making us feel smart enough to keep up with all the work. In the end both instructors made some of the dullest subjects fun and easy to learn. Whenever someone did not understand, help was offered not just from the instructors but from other students, who were more familiar with the subjects, outside of class.

After a four-hour lecture during the day we would spend another four hours in lab working hard at night. In Calculus we would just do problem after problems the lab work would turn to homework if you did not finish it, which was usually the case seeing as you have around seventy-five questions to get through.  In programming we would write programs that would teach us the principles. The lab assistants in both subjects were knowledgeable and friendly. They would help our brain understand when we thought it was already full to the max.

As if the forty-hour weeks (and one fifty-hour week) were not enough for me I took it upon myself to join the 24-hour Game Jam at Full Sail. On one Saturday around 8 programmers from different months in the program were trapped in a building and had to create a game in 24 hours. I was a great experience, no sleep just work. It really made us prove ourselves. We all just were coding, designing and eating cold pizza and stale donuts all day. The guys I met and worked with all had great attitudes and wanted to do their best when it came down to work.

Hitting milestones every few hours was difficult and when problems stopped the whole production we were left sitting waiting to get back to work. It really felt like I was working for a game company everyone was professional, but humorous as well, and we all felt like we were contributing to something we all thought would be fun. I defiantly will be signing up again.