Our Journey
I am an acting head and Co-Founder of The Monkey Barrel, a recently-started private community and support group for aspiring, passionate student creators within the University of Utah's Entertainment Arts & Engineering program. We all have one thing in common: we hunger to learn, and dream to one day establish ourselves professional careers in the game industry.
Our Monkey Mission
Our continued goal is to establish and maintain a professional yet fun work atmosphere where we all feel safe to explore, make mistakes and grow into our best selves. We actively encourage our members to step out of their shells - after all, the best way to learn is to just do it!
Placing ourselves into an organized team (of up to 20 members at that), we test and challenge ourselves in both university-facilitated and extracurricular game jams, where we develop fully functional video games from scratch within limited timeframes. During these events, we hope to develop our diverse technical and creative skills while functioning as a highly collaborative team that can meet aggressive milestones.
Outside of these events, while we aren't working to improve our networking and presentation skills, we bond as a close-knit community through extracurricular events and activities!
My Role
As the Lead Producer and Team Coordinator of The Monkey Barrel, it is my responsibility to not only ensure that each of our projects reaches completion but help each of our members feel comfortable growing and developing throughout our shared journey.
To ensure a smooth development process in our projects, I do everything I can to help everyone stay happy and productive. I keep my eye out for opportunities, finding and facilitating workspaces, events and board room meetings. I often represent the group as a public speaker. With the help of our department leads, I analyze issues to improve our development processes and pipeline efficiency for future projects.
When the going gets tough, I step in to directly guide and assist our members in work delegation, the production of creative assets and the final composition. Whatever I can do to ensure that our projects reach a happy end, I will do it.
Most of all, I put my best foot forward to make sure that every one of us is both heard and understood. By helping individuals find their niche, we evolve - both as a team and as a community. As it is in the professional world, a success for any one of our members is a success for us all.
Most dearly to me, I carry our philosophy to heart and bear it proudly on my chest. Everything we do-every failure and every triumph-is a learning experience for all of us, me included. I, myself, am tested every day, though I couldn't imagine a more inspiring group of individuals to discover myself alongside.
