Hello, I'm Charles Roman. Ten years ago, I started at Michigan State. I was signed up as an electrical engineering major. At one of the first orientation events I attended, a game development group on campus, Sparta Soft, had a table set up. I had absolutely no idea that you could, in high school that I could go to college to make video games. And after talking with them for just a short period of time, I knew it was what I wanted to do. I switched majors later that week and spent the next four years doing as much as I could to prepare myself to get a job in the industry. When I graduated from Michigan State, I applied to a ton of game companies, and it was quite disheartening when none of them got back to me. I had tried in previous years to get internships, but always just ended up working on campus through the summer. I originally though that this might have been the issue. I'd received an offer from IBM, and went to work with them out of college in East Lansing. It was a good job at a great company. I did a lot of interesting stuff while I was there. But it was never my dream, my passion. I continued to apply to any position I thought I was remotely qualified for and kept making as many games as I could in my free time. About a year into my time at IBM, I finally hit the jackpot and got an interview at Net Devil to work as a UI engineer on Lego Universe. I was as nervous as I could possibly be when I went to the interview. And when it ended up only going a half day, I was pretty sure I bombed it. They hadn't even taken me out to lunch after flying me out to Colorado. I was surprised when later that week I got the call from them and they wanted to hire me, and at that moment, I couldn't say yes fast enough. I worked with a lot of great people at Net Devil, but my time there didn't last long, and I was laid off about seven months after starting. I was pretty crushed. After how hard it was to find my first job in the industry, I didn't want to think about how hard it would be to find the next. This is where my new contacts came in. They knew I was good and a hard worker for my time at Net Devil, and recommended me to many of the companies I applied to. I had a couple of offers this time around. I ended up taking a contracting job at EA for a UI designer that my previous UI designer had worked for. The position was a promise of full time, and it was a risk. But I thought the risk was worth it. It worked out and I stayed at EA for four years before again being laid off. Again, I decided to take a risk and go with a start up Rating Entertainment, to help them work on Rising Thunder, and I'm loving every minute of it. Overall, my advice is to never stop going for what you really want. If my stories to teach anything, it is that determination and hard work do pay off. When you get your chance, show your passion and make sure you put everything into that interview that you can. As an interviewer myself, I can tell when people are passionate about what they do. If you want to make games you have to show me that you actually make games. Don't just stop there and when you do get the job continue to show your passion and hard work. People will recognize that you're the type of person they want to work with again and will recommend you in the hard times. I hope this information was helpful to all the aspiring game developers listening and hopefully our paths will cross some day.