<p>As my screen name implies, I’m a longtime lurker. My daughter is a senior in high school and I am trying to help her find a good college fit. This forum has been a great help already!</p>
<p>She’s not sure about her career goals, but one thing that interests her is being a videogame localizer. Apparently, this is a person who translates a game into another language and also takes the two cultures into account. Because of this interest, she started studying Japanese last year and really loves it. She is now taking intermediate Japanese. She is looking for a college where she can major or minor in it. But when she writes about her passion for Japanese in her essay, she wants to say that her love of videogaming got her interested. My fear is that a college will see that and be immediately inclined to reject her. (She doesn’t plan on majoring in videogame programming or design per se, so no hook there.) Any thoughts on this?</p>
<p>My son was accepted by Penn, CMU, WUSTL, and UIUC, and I know he mentioned DDR in at least one or more applications. The colleges really love to see a passion that has spanned a few years and activities, and your daughter’s situation really fits the bill. The schools all know that teenagers love videogames so I wouldn’t let that be a concern, especially considering what it led her into.</p>
<p>I think showing how an interest in videogames led your D to study a very difficult language and the culture of its people would make for a good essay. It shows she has the capacity to be inspired even by something as quotidian as videogames. The subject lends itself to some intriguing observations she could explore in the essay - today’s Japan as source of pop culture influential in the US in the same way that American pop culture was influential in Japan a generation/two ago; how Japanese videogames bridge (or don’t bridge) the culture gap; how Japanese portray themselves internationally, etc. etc. </p>
<p>A good English teacher capable of pushing students to deeper levels of writing could help your D write a unque essay - one that sets her apart.
(I know a kid who wrote about the relationship between his interest in history and the Lego-people battles he invented/recreated in his basement. He got in – to Stanford.)</p>
<p>My son reviewed and critiqued video games for an on line site when he was in high school. He mentioned this in his college applications showing how it helped him hone his writing skills and how he learned to meet deadlines. He goes to Columbia now.</p>
<p>Don’t a lot of schools (or at least a few) have gaming majors? Designing, creating video games? I’d think they would at least be intrigued by “video game translation.”</p>
<p>I don’t know about college admissions, but I think your daughter’s plan sounds very interesting. Add to that that there are not nearly as many women interested in video games as men. I really think it will be a plus.</p>
<p>She could do a fantastic essay on what it means to be a video game localizer and having to translate not only the words but also the cultures, and how that led her to the study of Japanese. Schools with good programs in Japanese language and civilization may not be keen on video game addicts; but profs of Japanese studies will be happy to attract students to their courses, whether the students got interested via travel, anime or video games.</p>
<p>Do you remember when “data base” was the norm? How about “video text”?</p>
<p>In English etymology, the trend is to begin with a compound noun, sometimes morphing through a hyphenated compound, before arriving at a single word. Back in the olden days, copy editors (or copyeditors, as some prefer to be called) browsed competitive publications to try to gauge how far along we were in that process. Now of course, we Google.</p>
<p>I know a young man who wrote about his leadership skills within a video game. He needed to organize other players over a period of time, etc. (don’t ask me anymore b/c I don’t know anything else about it). My son told me about the essay. The essay worked well with regard to his admission to various schools.</p>
<p>No, no, you don’t understand. Try Googling “data base” and you’ll see "did you mean ‘database’ " and then about 53 million hits; then Google “database” and you’ll get a couple billion. Similar results with videogame/video game. The trick is to browse the results and gauge the respectability of the publications. Trust me, “videogame” is well on its way. One impetus is the problem of using a compound noun as a modifier – most writers/editors will insert a hyphen for clarity. Then, of course, in technical publications the page is so besotted with hyphens that nobody wants to read it. Thus: contraction to a single word. It’s happening as we type.</p>
<p>D wrote about her love of roller coasters and she’s at Amherst. What they want is honesty and to get a feel for the kid. If she’s in, fine. If she isn’t then that wasn’t the right match for her, if they cared about that so much. Better to be honest and go where they appreciate you, than to be dishonest and go where you really don’t fit.</p>