Leo Hernández has just finished his first year of the B.A. in Interactive Product Design (studying in English). We have talked with him about his lessons, about his decision to study this degree in English, and about his professional and academic future’s expectations. This is what he had to say! Take note of this!
Why did you decide to study interactive product design?
Well, I have been playing video games since I was four or five years old, and I am passionate about them. Developing games has always been my dream and I felt like this was the perfect degree to start with my learning regarding game design and the general elements every game designer should know.
Why did you decide to study in English?
My English teacher from 2º of Bachillerato told us that if we had the possibility, we should take our lessons in English, and she was right because it is a good opportunity to keep learning and practicing the language.
This is giving us the opportunity to learn the specific terms and vocabulary of the industry in English, which is one of the main languages that we are surely going to use while working, even if we stay here in Spain. I feel like it’s a way of preparing ourselves to be versatile in a work environment, because we are learning to communicate fluently with teams from other locations or just teammates that do not speak Spanish, which then facilitates the creation and development of a product.
Which are your aims studying this degree?
My personal objective is to obtain as much knowledge as I can from every different area and putting it in practice during this four years. I also want to learn as much as possible from our teachers, not just the things they need to teach us because of the stablished curriculum. They all have an extensive trajectory in different working sectors and the best thing is to learn from their experiences, which for me is the thing that I like the most. Basically I want to see and experience the industry as much as I can: during classes, with experiences from teachers, participating in events or with working experience. I want to leave U-Tad with the feeling that I am ready for everything that might come after it.
What is most relevant about your lessons at U-tad? Why?
I believe that, as I have previously mentioned, teachers are amazing. They are not only full of knowledge and experience, but they are also very close to us. They are all very caring and you can really see how they are focused on transmitting as much knowledge as they can. And it is not only like this during classes, outside they are even more fun to hang with and we keep that bond that we create during the lessons. For example, I sometimes stream in Twitch, and a few teachers have come to say hi in the chat and hang with me a bit, which I thought that was wholesome. I have also recently come out as a trans man, which as you can imagine is a hard process because society is still working on learning about this. However, when I talked with my teachers about this, everyone was super supportive and caring. And this is also a nice thing about U-Tad, we can be whoever we really are without being scared and having this type of environment is always positive for the learning experience.
Have you ever worked? How has the experience been?
I have not had any working experience yet in this sector, but I am actually looking for some job offers, so hopefully I will be able to tell you something about this in the future!
What kind of projects are you development in U-tad?
Even if we have just finished the first course, which is more theorical because we need to learn the foundations of everything, we have been working in several projects, both individually and in groups. For example, we have developed two different board games and a small video game using Unity. We have also worked in the creation of an escape room so you can see that even in the first year we have been working on different types of games. Moreover we have had different individual projects related with the different types of documentations that a Game Designer needs to manage, analysis of both games and other documents, more focused on the social aspect of the industry and then other projects like the creation of two small games for the console of the computer, which were done during the Foundations of Programming lessons. As you can see, we have worked on a different variety of projects during this months, which is always a good way to settle the theoretical knowledge as well as a way of developing our creativity.
What do you expect from your studies at U-tad?
From my formation in U-Tad I expect to learn as much as I can in the environment that the University provides. The good thing is that we start working very early with other degrees, so it is the perfect opportunity to create interdisciplinary projects and get a grasp of what the industry really feels like. Also, we have a lot of technological material both in relation with software and hardware, so hopefully I will leave the University knowing a bit of everything, which is always nice. Lastly, I expect that, thanks to the relationships that the U-Tad has with different companies, I can obtain some working experience to boost my professional and personal development.
