About me

Growing up

I grew up in a small town in The Netherlands. My first several school years were in said town. Around when I was 6 we acquired a N64 for which we had a blaster gun. I can very specifically remember us playing games on it and my older brother and sisters handing me the gun to “play along” with them. I also remember us having a cartridge of a space-jam video game on it but other then that the console left my mind rather quickly as the next console was coming up already.

The GameCube followed and man that device was a true hero for me. I have intense memories of that device (which has long since died due to the disc drive malfunctioning). Memories of bringing it along into our car to play Windwaker as we drove to Spain. Playing Super Smash Brothers with friends and family and several others. If there was rainy wheather outside I would mostly be on the GameCube with either a friend or one of my siblings. But when I was rather young we moved to the United States.

In the United States I learned a huge amount of my English. I also got my first Xbox so me and my best friend could continue to play video games together. This is where I bought Halo 2, one of my top 3 games to this date. This game and my time in the US solidified my love for video games and introduced me to Warcraft 3 in time. The game where I would first encounter “dev” tools. This is where I first played around with “code” even though it was all relatively simple and basic and a tad too complicated.

After 2 years of living like this in the US we returned to our home town in the Netherlands were I concluded my youth education and started with “serious” education.

Educational path

Educationaly I first went into a school where I attempted HAVO/VWO, where VWO is essentialy pre-university level. In my second year I failed but transferred to a private school. This school let me continue my path and even let me start in the third year. In year 5 I requested of my principal that they would give me Informatics as a Class. Which I then followed and completed in a year and a half (the class is normally 3 or 4 years). Unfortunatly at the same time I failed 3 of my exams meaning I couldn’t complete my VWO education. I was forced to do that year over. I approached my principal and informatics teacher if I could become a Teaching assistant as I would be at school anyways and this way I could earn a bit of money while helping out my already busy teacher.

After completing VWO I went to the University of Utrecht and attempt IT:Game development there but I failed in my first year. So I went down one level and started doing a HBO at de Hogeschool van Amsterdam. Where I currently am.

Profesional path

So far my profesional path outside of educational institutes has been:

Currently I find myself focused on my studies though.

Aspirations

My current real aspirations are to either become a programmer/designer for a video game company which I could use to increase my own breadth of knowledge regarding programming, architecture and game design. I would argue any gamedeveloper worth their words would want to make sure that their respective games are fun first.

If in any case I can’t work in that specific field directly I hope to still go into a development team somewhere. But with enough time to still be attached to the video game industry in my own time. By for example mainting a youtube channel similair to that of totalbiscuit.

Contact information

If you wish to contact me regarding any matters, feel free to e-mail me @ dhr.sjors.gielen@gmail.com

Resume

Find my resume HERE.

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