{"id":88,"date":"2026-09-17T19:26:48","date_gmt":"2026-09-17T19:26:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.wp.odu.edu\/mgmt340\/?page_id=88"},"modified":"2026-09-25T19:55:01","modified_gmt":"2026-09-25T19:55:01","slug":"relevant-coursework","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/sites.wp.odu.edu\/tjord021portfolio\/relevant-coursework\/","title":{"rendered":"Relevant Coursework"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

   First off, Unity is not the most beginner-friendly game engine in my honest opinion.  Its main saving grace is the plethora of tutorials at one\u2019s disposal, but the amount of issues I\u2019ve run into at every turn has me doubting myself in every sense of the word.  Maybe it\u2019s hard for me to focus under pressure or my attention span is beyond saving when it comes to learning C# from a simple YouTube video, but I simply cannot get through much of anything within a week\u2019s time, especially not in an accelerated course.  I have completed several tutorials on how to even begin<\/em> to grasp what it is I\u2019m doing, including but not limited to implementing player controls, collision, lighting, how to code an animated gun, the list goes on as does my frustration with the engine as well as myself.  If I ever did manage to change one aspect of this prototype, if I could even call it that, it was through various attempts at getting the most basic of components to operate properly and they still have yet to do so in all the time I\u2019ve wasted.  After rewatching many tutorials and having nothing click, I\u2019ve come to realise this course may not be for me in the slightest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

   I don\u2019t know why I thought Unity would be workable with my pitiful knowledge.  It certainly would\u2019ve been advantageous to the scope of my project if I had even half the wits necessary to start with.  What little worked in my favor was getting as far from this prototype as possible, taking breaks to calm myself down, asking for help even if it accomplished little to nothing, finding tutorial after tutorial to make even an inkling of progress with the sheer amount of issues I ran into time and time again, and messing around with the millions of meaningless buttons until something worked halfway better than it did before.  The difficulties I encountered could not be counted on one hand if I really dug into it.  A majority of the options and settings within Unity made no sense to me, my laptop\u2019s storage space is now severely lacking, we did not receive any coding lessons in C# prior to this assignment to begin with, my player controller still phases through walls and does not adhere to any declines in the map, and lighting seems to have a mind of its own in making walls facing a certain direction pitch black.  I\u2019m sure this is nothing, complete child\u2019s play even, to the mildly adept Unity user, but I have spent days<\/em> having one issue after the other to the point of reconsidering my life choices.  As a consequence, I do not foresee the game I brainstormed seeing the light of day this decade, if ever at all.  I initially thought I would have trouble making my player character move with the certain feel I wanted them to, making mechanics like wallrunning come to fruition.  As it turns out, I couldn\u2019t even come close to making a player controller that jumped without it already being coded into the asset, let alone fire weaponry if I could possibly have accomplished that before this assignment was due.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

   I\u2019ve learned that I am not ready for this, I bit off more than I could chew yet again in my life, and I\u2019d be better off not working by another\u2019s deadlines or else I may pull my hair out trying to learn and work simultaneously instead of taking care of my mental and physical health.  I may have been better off starting with Godot or GameMaker, but at this point I doubt my ability to grasp either of those much better within the same timeframe as I did here, any lack of tutorials quick to become the final nail in my dream\u2019s coffin.  Perhaps I could have found hope in Unity\u2019s on-site tutorials, alas I doubt I could have focused on them and learned quickly enough to meet expectations.  In fact, I should have done just this months before courses even began, yet for some confounded reason, I didn\u2019t and now I pay the headaching price.  Foolishly, I was afraid starting anything on my own would be interrupted by college and thought it better to waste that precious time doing nothing worth my remembrance.  If I had been a smarter woman then, maybe, just maybe<\/em> I wouldn\u2019t have had such a hard time as I am right now.  I don\u2019t believe I can finish either course of mine presently with passing grades, let alone a full year of this considering every last course will likely pose similar stressors and road blocks, and I genuinely have to consider my limits sooner than later.  It has brought me to tears multiple times, even now as I write this I have to clear my eyes to see the text on the screen or my keyboard.  I hate it, in all honesty, but that\u2019s life and I have to be real with myself.  I may consider switching majors because the course of this year is absolutely not for me if I struggle so horribly within the first half of my first semester at ODU.  It\u2019s shameful really, and I am honestly embarrassed that it had to be said, or that it took me this long to see the truth that I am not ready for this.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0I close it off here to say this is not your fault.\u00a0 The curriculum is accelerated and I should\u2019ve expected a bumpy ride, that\u2019s my own overambition and insecurity I\u2019ve been thoroughly humbled with, and I hope you have a good rest of your year.\u00a0 Thank you for your help, and I must say I rather enjoyed the class up to this point including the wonderful games and books you introduced us to.\u00a0 These are materials I never would have acquired otherwise, and I will hold onto them for years to come.\u00a0 My only wish was that I\u2019d done better with the time I had and never let it come to this, but you live and you learn, sometimes the hard way.\u00a0 Rest assured that I will continue game development and learn on my own time outside of this curriculum at my own<\/em> pace as I see fit.\u00a0 I am not<\/em> giving up on this.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

   First off, Unity is not the most beginner-friendly game engine in my honest opinion.  Its main saving grace is the plethora of tutorials at one\u2019s disposal, but the amount of issues I\u2019ve run into at every turn has me doubting myself in every sense of the word.  Maybe it\u2019s hard for me to focus under…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32785,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.wp.odu.edu\/tjord021portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/88"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.wp.odu.edu\/tjord021portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.wp.odu.edu\/tjord021portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.wp.odu.edu\/tjord021portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/32785"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.wp.odu.edu\/tjord021portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=88"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sites.wp.odu.edu\/tjord021portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/88\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":159,"href":"https:\/\/sites.wp.odu.edu\/tjord021portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/88\/revisions\/159"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.wp.odu.edu\/tjord021portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=88"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}