Bad luck :(

what kind of job?

Level Design. Nothing Crazy.

MAKE US SOME MAPS ALREADY THEN !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

so sorry man i like you on here and feel bad when i read that. i still think that university shouldn't be the way forward. It fucking sucks. and real world skills is >>>>> than university i'm a bit pissed atm :((

What, do they think you are some Welsh nationalist extremist or something? :D

Oh come on, like the UK does not need a giant kick up the arse?

cry more on the internet

go back to africa

That's T-Bone!

You spelt my name wrong! I'm going to be going through visa problems myself, but the czech republic isn't that strict so no problemo.

We had to wait over 12 months until we finally got our American visas.

O RLY?

I got my UK visa in 10 days, you suck ahahaha!

will take you for a beer when you arrive if you're going to prague.

Awesome :) I want to taste this fantasic czech beer!

How's q4 gaming over there? With 2mbit or 4mbit adsl do you get good pings to the rest of europe? 2 things most important to me, beer and broadband :)

ah, the big B's = beer and broadband :D well its like this I have a 512/128 ADSL connection and recently in my street they renovated the physical network, going from the plain steel cables to fiber optics. My average ping dropped from about 40 to 20 since then, its amazing. I was at first disappointed by Quake 4 and then my HDD then my router died - in that order - but now I got a new disk and router and today I just got Q4max 0.71 and my faith in Quake 4 has been restored, so I will begin to become more involved in the local Quake 4 scene. The good news is, from what I've seen from Quake 3 online games, most cz gamers can chat (speaking is another issue heh) in english, so thats good for your communication purposes.
Now, broadband availability - if you're moving to Prague, then I find it's pretty good. If you're going to move into a flat - and there are quite a few here because thats all the Communists knew how to build - then cable is directly available, which in the respect of ping and price is better than ADSL. There are some flats where cable isnt available, but they're probably on the outskirts of Prague or something. If you're moving into a house, then it is more likely that ADSL is available. The golden rule is that, the closer to the center of the city you are (meaning the river) the higher the probability that broadband is available. There are two major ADSL providers - Telenor and the Czech Telecom. Telenor (recently bought by GTS international) has its own physical network in Prague (their ADSL services are offered through a Czech company called Nextra www.nextra.cz) and if you are within their network, then their ADSL is much better and cheaper than the Czech Telecom. My ISP is Czech Telecom, and Telenor recently became available where I'm at, but I don't really think I need to switch to Telenor, besides, parents are paying the bills and as long as my pings are this low its cool. If you think you'll move into Prague, you can check availability of broadband from Czech Telecom / Telenor at the following sites if you know the number of the place you'll move into;
cz telecom
telenor availability map

thats broadband.

generally the gaming scene here is pretty popular - theres many gaming internet cafes in prague. The biggest progaming company in CZ, Progamers, has its own branch of the best internet cafes in cz called PG Cyber Cafes. there are four in prague, in each of them theres inter-cybercafe tournaments (like - all of PG cyber cafes in cz) every weekend, but mostly for popular games like W3 and CS. otherwise there are many internet cafes which dont belong to the Progamers network which are pretty good - recently one opened up right next to a laser game, and if you pay 250czk (like 5 american dollars, bout 4 euros) in a group of 10 ppl u reserve the laser game and internet cafe for the whole night and u get to play on the LAn and laser game for the whole night. Id love to do that but most of my friends arent gamers. yea so theres no real lack of gaming net cafes in the center of town, there sure as hell isnt one on every corner, but def what youd be looking for.

if you get into gaming seriously you can become a member of the czech-moravian union of progaming, www.cmsp.cz and it gives you cheaper prices at PG cyber cafes and Progamers LANS. Progamers has one huge LAN every year, called the PG challenge - I went there this year, (700ppl) attended at the Quake 3 tournament didnt get far (qualified into the play-off! :D) BUT i met Jibo and cooller was supposed to be there too but he bribed the russian army with the money he had for travelling so he wouldnt have to do russian milt. service. so thats cool, if ur into gaming and live in prague man u simply cant miss out on the PG challenge - its awesome to meet your fellow gamers :D

concerning beer, and everything related - nightlife in prague is fucking awesome. basically theres tons of clubs, they DONT check ID - im under 18 (17) and ive been to strip clubs and shit without neone asking me any questions - but that may also be coz i look over 20 :D and have older friends.

so what do u think? :)

GOOD! Just sounds like getting the visa is going to be a hassle :/ not that I won't get it, just that it will take long and be irritating. I'm waiting till I have about 80 000czk, that will pay for flight there, studies (TEFL - i'll be teaching english) and accomodation and food for 2 months. (Hopefully I'll have a job by then!)

PS. I have about 48000czk, over half way :)

(saved in 3 months)

Looks good, gl getting the visa!

i didnt go to uni either but now ive got 3 years experience in an industry id never want to work in again :((


back to the drawing board :(

Thats harsh, so true how a lot of people today base everything on a degree. I'm sure there is a minority of companies out there who look at practical knowledge as opposed to academic knowledge. But you’d be hard pressed to find them. Sorry to hear about that man, good luck, hope you can find something you like and that works for you!

Wal-Mart is a good choice.

Hahah Wal-Mart… yeah that’s just what he needs. A vest, a name badge, and some psycho-economic indoctrination about why we need people to stand at the entrance of multi-billion dollar corporations mindlessly smiling and saying “good morning” or “good evening” as the situation dictates. The man wants a job, not a life as a zombie. Clearly if he was going to be working for a tech company (who was willing to get him all set to pay for his way to the states) working on level design, he’s not gunna spend the better part of his day standing around smiling like a Hindu cow for minimum wage.

You’re from the US, you should know that Wal-Mart is using its market power to force supplying companies to find cheaper ways of offering the same products. This is driving domestic (US) product plants to be re-located overseas where they can employ people for pennies on the hour. Wal-Mart is great for the consumer, but in the end, it does more bad then good for the US economy and the job rates, in my humble opinion.

swoosh

o man, you got served

I would guess "swoosh" meant agreement.

no

At least it aint kmart :p

Getting the job was not the problem. i had done the hard work.
Sadly, it was an imiigration issue.

And most companies(in games) take practical knowledge waaay over a degree in the game industry. A lot of the best programmers and artists in the industry are mostly self taught from a young age.
It's usally the same in most creative type jobs.

I'm not too familiar with the industry, but I'd say that most self taught programmers are the best, indeed. However, it tends to be that the ones that aren't self taught are those who are successful. (barring maybe some in the open source community)

do I look like I care

I don't think you care about anything but yourself, but that's another issue.

I understand you might not agree with it, but I fully understand companies being selective about their employees, and base a lot of value on university degrees; It is not just a piece of paper.

Yes, there are very creative and capable people who can do as well or better than someone with a degree, but generally it is safer for employers to go with people who have an officially documented qualification.

What many people dont see, is that having an impressive portfolio does not directly convey your skills that companies value (in a lot of fields).

Firstly, it is not possibly to determine the extent of originality in many cases; exactly how much of project xyz is truely your work.

Second, a portfolio does not convey the timescale of your work; project xyz might be very impressive, but not if it took you 2 years to create. In the real world there are deadlines, and not meeting them can be as good as not doing anything.

Thirdly, often portfolios consist of individual efforts, which show none of your teamwork ability. In many big companies, the extent that you can integrate with your colegues, and produce your work in a distributed environment means everything.

And other issues, which I can't be bothered explaining (unless someone really wants me to, there really are a few more), but none the less cannot be conveyed through a personal portfolio.

Most good universities would structure their courses in a way, that your degree depends on factors such as the ones above. Universities know this, and so do employers. At the university where I work, there are entire modules devoted to areas like teamwork. Similarly, handing in coursework late has a direct effect on your degree. Things like plagurism is taken very seriously, and courses and coursework is designed in ways to prevent it as much as possible.

If you think you have what it takes then do what Bill Gates did, and start your own company. This is the way people without degree's can really make it. It is hard (and would have been hard for Bill too) to join a company without a degree and work his way up from nothing.

My case has nothign to do with that. The company had already offered me the job so a degree was not required.
However it was important to get around the immigration/red-tape and that is annoying.
Especially when they let everyone into the UK, often people without any skills, money.

Sadly, although uni's are good for traditional professions, its only recently that they sart catering for the game industry.
By which time I was was already doing fine from natural ability and learning from others.

I may just be biased here, but it seems to me that graduates in computer science fields and such tend to be a little more than retarded, and probably couldn't write their own applications if they had a book telling them how to do it. Many of them are just book learned and aspire to work their way through school with whatever shortcuts they can get, and not to mention that most courses in that field probably aren't up to par, unless you went to a good technical school.
That's just my opinion.

To put it in perspective, people like bill gates dropped out of university, yet the world is so biased and obsessed with stupid bits of paper that don't always mean everything.

That's because he didn't apply to join someone else's company in another country you thick cunt, he setup his own business.

At least it's good to know another country doesn't want you, now if we can just organize ours to kick this cunt out.

You're dumb troll with with behavioural and mental problems.
Merry christmas and welcome to my ignore list.

cool, is that like being on the-company-you-desperately-wanted-to-join-overseas' ignore list? LOL

that was NAUGHTY.

so you didnt get your way and you flamed the person on the other end? you totally ARE as big a troll in real life as you are on esr. instead of complaining you should evaluate what you did wrong and figure out how you can prevent yourself from burning bridges like this in the future. hahaha

It had nothing to do with getting my own way. I was promised weekly reports on the status of the situation and failed to receive that.

On top of that they already knew the situation for over 10 days and said nothing only until I asked. I don't mind burning those sort of bridges.

Just go pro in Q4 instead.