When I started college I dreamed of making movies. I loved the magic of creating entirely new worlds and using technology to enhance those worlds and those stories. In my senior year, I was fortunate enough to attend the Game Developers Conference as a volunteer and it hit me – video games did everything I loved about the movies AND you got to actually PLAY them too! I had always been a gamer, but had never really considered what it would take to make games – I mean, they just magically appear, right? My developer and game design friends opened my eyes to an entire industry I was unaware of. Creating that magic and being able to share it with others, delighting people, I knew that’s what I wanted to do.
At that same Game Developer’s Conference (GDC) I met someone who had just started working in Quality Assurance at EA. I managed to go to one of the recruiting events during the conference and got to meet a few more folks from EA (even Will Wright!). I have been a Sims fan since the first Sims came out. Getting to talk with the people that worked at the same company was a pretty amazing experience for me. The friend I met at the conference recommended me for an opening in the Quality Assurance group (in The Sims no less!) which I happily departed my waitressing job for.