Charlene Jeune's personal essay and a recommendation from her manager at Electronic Arts (EA), where she had been an intern, catapulted her into the finals round in which she was awarded one of two EA $2,500 scholarships.
As an intern in Software Quality Assurance (SQA) department, Jeune was responsible for expediting the development process by integrating internal tools into games that reported bugs and supported the use of quality assurance. Working with the SQA department included the opportunity to work on multiple games in the course of her internship
Jeune was first placed with the team at Sims Studios creating SimAnimals Africa. Charlene says it was rewarding to work on a commercial game that millions of players will use in a work environment in which “everybody got to contribute.”
Charlene Jeune: "Creating fun. That's how I see games."
On the completion of SimAnimals, Jeune worked with Visceral Games (the team that created Dead Space) on the game Dante’s Inferno. Due to EA’s satisfaction with her previous work, Jeune enjoyed the increased responsibility of working on this project without a supervising mentor.
According to Jeune, EA interns were immersed as much as possible in the company in order give both company and intern the opportunity to decide whether they wish to work together in the future. Special intern events included outings and a schedule of speakers including Chief Executive Officer of EA John Riccitiello.
Jeune participated in a competition organized for teams of three interns each to engineer, design, and market a prototype browser game. The teams were then given the opportunity to get experience in presenting their projects to a board of EA executives.
If a job opening is available after Jeune’s graduation, the Redwood City location of EA at which Charlene interned plans to offer her the position or find her a place at another location. Jeune hopes to work in Japan at some point as she has double-majored in Japanese and studied abroad there previously.
The experience of interning at EA has solidified Jeune’s desire to work in the games industry. She says this was due to the great atmosphere in which everyone enjoyed making games and worked as a team toward the games’ success. “Creating fun,” Jeune says. “That’s how I see making games.”
