Do the courses exploit Qantm’s global network?

On quite a large scale, yes. You could do your first year in London and second in Brisbane, or Singapore. You have that option to transfer. That’s what you’d call a ‘cool thing’, I suppose, because it’s not really about the education. But in Byron Bay, for example, we had Ramon Rivera [animation director for the Lord Of The Rings movies] who we sent around to all the different colleges, and he did a week of lecturing in each college. So it’s not a case of having that same lecturer right the way through. We also do web seminars that make use of our international offices, so someone in LA or Glasgow could have a web conference viewed by all our colleges around the world.



Do you still have time to help candidates get a job?

When organising graduate positions, we have a number of areas that allow for that. We have a global HR portal/social site called mySAE.org, which is there for students, graduates and alumni. Similar to Facebook, maybe, but more of a work networking thing. So we have major companies coming to us advertising exclusively on there, avoiding recruitment agencies.

When it comes down to full-time jobs, our lecturers do help place them but it’s as much, if not more, down to the student. Any college or university that says otherwise is mis-selling themselves. If we were to go to a studio and say: “We’ve got this student that’s interested in this position,” 90 per cent of the time they’d tell them to get off their arse and express that interest themselves. Sure, we can reiterate their skills and everything, but if they don’t have the energy or drive to apply they probably don’t have it for working in that area.

Which other lecturers and speakers have you had at Qantm?

We’ve got Miles Glynn at the moment, who’s teaching our Modelling Digital Environments module – he’s worked on projects like Harry Potter and Sunshine. Jason Colman is our head of games. We also have Alex Whittaker from Beautiful Games Studio [Championship Manager] who came in and reviewed student works. We’re looking at bringing in Paul Steed [id Software], who’s a very well-respected game designer; he’s probably coming in mid-October time.

Qantm’s attended several events aimed at the 14- to 19-year-old age group. Is there a skills shortage you’re addressing?

Very much so. Qantm’s always trying to think two years ahead. Universities have fixed their courses based on what they figured out when these issues were originally mentioned. So in two years they’ll be putting out graduates but there won’t be any positions for them. There’ll be an abundance of them for only a certain amount of industry positions. So what we teach now is what we think the industry will require in two years’ time, and that’s based on industry trends in different countries and our own advisory board. That’s obviously exaggerated with regards to the Skills London and BBC Blast events, because we’re going there to really get them from a younger age and show them why maths and physics are really relevant to 3D games.

What technological partners do you have within the industry?

We’re working with FMOD for our game audio production, and Dell is a strong partner for the computers we’re buying – every student receives a Dell laptop to keep. With things like game engines we do work with a number of companies. So we’re using the Trinigy game engine in our studios around the world, and we’re exploring XNA – though our main focus is on students learning the craft from the ground up. Unreal Editor’s being taught as part of our level design course and various things like that.

What’s next for Qantm?

[Laughs] All very top secret. There’s a new course being announced in a week’s time which will be an industry-leading course, the first of its kind in the country and possibly the world. It’ll be a big announcement but I can’t tell you what yet.