GCG Feature: ‘My Search for a Japanese Game School’

Applying to a game development school is stressful enough as it is -- now imagine doing it in a foreign language and culture. Andrea Rubenstein, a native English speaker who has been studying Japanese, was recently accepted to a Japanese game school, and she tells her story of how it all came together in a new feature on sister web site GameCareerGuide.com. Her story is that of an outsider trying to get in: a Westerner trying to acclimate to Japanese culture, a game player trying to become a professional developer, and a student striving to grow beyond her typical boundaries. Here, she shares a bit about the process: “I thought about trying my hand at translation, as it's always been a dream of mine to become fluent in Japanese. It was with that thought in mind that I moved to Japan in April 2006. But after about a year of studying at a Japanese language school, I realized that the translating idea wasn't going to pan out, specifically because I don't want to translate games; I want to make them. However, the idea of studying in Japan opened another door. Maybe I could find a technical school in Japan where I could study game design. Things started to look up when, in casually trying to search online for information about schools, I found a FAQ that told me yes, I could in fact study to be a game creator in Japan. With the help of one of my Japanese teachers, I got on a mailing list to receive information from prospective schools. For the next two months I went through pamphlets from three to five schools every day. Most schools sent two main pamphlets: a booklet that introduced the school and the curriculum, and a booklet that explained when and how to apply. Although I have since become more comfortable reading Japanese, my ability to do so at that point wasn't nearly as strong as it needed to be. All the technical language made me feel like everything I had learned up until then was crap. Looking at the application guide was seriously like reading a whole new language.” You can now read the complete article on GameCareerGuide.com.