Heather Conover
Game Design major
Hometown: Sharon, MA
A perfect combination of ambition and action
To this ambitious game design major, it seems like not so long ago she came from her hometown of Sharon, MA, and first set foot on the Champlain Campus.
Right from the start of her time at Champlain, Heather’s future began to crystallize. “I applied for a position in Champlain’s Emergent Media Center (EMC),” says Heather. “But I really thought, ’Why would they hire me?’ — I was a freshman without much game design experience.” It’s safe to say her confidence wasn’t running high as she started her college journey. Still, Heather did land the EMC position. “I started working that July,” she says, “and then they said: ’By the way, we are sending you to South Africa.’”
Heather travelled with 15 other Champlainers to Cape Town, South Africa as part of the research team working on a joint project between Champlain’s EMC and the United Nations that addressed the issue of violence against women. “Going to South Africa for ten days was one of the hugest changes in my life,” says Heather.
Later in her sophomore year, Heather was chosen to become a presenter at the Montreal Game Summit about social impact games. “It was scary,” recalls Heather. “I was just a sophomore, and I was going to this conference and there were creative directors of companies I would potentially want to work for sitting in the room listening to me.”
Her next speaking appearance was at the United Nations presenting the EMC game project. “I now feel very confident speaking in front of people,” Heather enthuses. “I figure if I’ve spoken in front of the U.N. to an international audience, I can speak in front of anybody.”
Also during her sophomore year, Heather started a student organization called the Women in Technology Club to encourage young women to enter the tech arena because they still tend to shy from fields of study that have been traditionally dominated by men. Now in her senior year, Heather remains President. “I think now that I am older, the younger students tend to be more willing to look up to me,” she says. The group currently has 16 members — both male and female — and continues to grow.
During her junior year, not only did Heather take a semester abroad at Champlain Montreal, but also she was hired by Fit Brain to help develop an interactive learning game for Reader’s Digest. The vice president of the Vancouver-based company had come across a response to a blog posting Heather had written on the topic of serious game development, and he contacted her. “It was the best paying job I’ve ever had,” says Heather, who worked with the company via Skype.
Receiving the “Most Promising Non-Senior Scholarship” enabled Heather — still a junior at the time — to go to the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco with five seniors from her Champlain Division. “I introduced myself to people I didn’t know,” laughs Heather. “That’s how I ended up with an internship at 38 Studios — a video game company in Massachusetts where some of the most massive multiplayer online games have been developed. It was really great that happened for me because any opportunity in the industry that happens to one of us at Champlain is beneficial to all of us.”
Now at the outset of her senior year at Champlain, Heather’s mission is to be a real resource for her fellow students. “I really feel confident,” says Heather. “I have done so many interesting things and met so many people that I have made a name for myself; I want to use that to help Champlain and give back to the people who really deserve it — there are so many talented people at this school.”
A game created by Champlain Seniors