Over the last week, we’ve been going on site visits to companies. These site visits will provide us with the necessary information for our final presentation. The company assigned to my group was Glass Egg, which we got to tour today. Glass Egg is a video game development studio that prioritizes outsourced model creation. They are the number one studio for creating vehicle models and make models of guns, characters, and other miscellaneous models. I’m happy that the company that was assigned to me fits my interests, and the site visit did not disappoint! We got to see the behind the scenes of a 600-person developer that works on the largest AAA games. I saw them render gun models for Call of Duty and create vehicle models for Rocket League. It was fun walking down the cubicle office and just looking at everyone’s screen, trying to figure out what games they’re working on. I thought it was interesting that the tour guide had a technical background and was super into games; it made the tour feel more dynamic since she knew in-depth concepts and could explain anything. I also thought it was interesting that we weren’t allowed to take photos since it was behind the scenes and the things they’re working on aren’t released yet.
The second half of the day was sports day! We changed after a lunch of delicious pho into athletic clothes and boarded the bus. I didn’t know what the plan was for sports day since I thought we weren’t boxing due to the insurance not being able to cover it. I was surprised when we did go to the boxing gym. It was fun using high-quality boxing gloves for the first time. The only ones I’ve ever used before were crappy ones with no padding. I also learned I’m horribly out of shape, which is fun. I thought the sparring sessions were somewhat underwhelming and am a bit upset the matches with the UEF students were cancelled. The mini games we played were fine, but I had more fun just messing around with the other students using the volleyball. In the end I think it was a positive experience, but I think they should have adapted better once they learned we couldn’t hold any matches. I think sticking with boxing was detrimental, but I understand logistically it could have been a nightmare to switch so late. Looking back on this week, the highlight has to be the Cu Chi tunnels, but I also had a lot of fun just exploring the city. We visited a place called Saigon Square. It’s a market where you haggle with vendors selling mostly knockoff apparel. It was a lot of fun just walking around and talking to the shopkeepers. Overall, it’s been a great first week, and I’m looking forward to the second!
