Interview & Portfolio Requirements
Interviews for full-time courses are relaxed and informal. This is your chance to have a chat with an AIE teacher, ask questions and demonstrate your interest, enthusiasm and potential to complete the course to a high standard. You’ll also have the opportunity to tour our campus and see our students in action. Common questions discussed in the interview relate to teamwork, educational history, what you want to gain from the course and your long-term career aspirations. During the interview you’ll also need to show examples of your work from your portfolio. Your interviewing teacher will assess which level of the course would best suit you and let you know if you need to submit further materials.
Portfolio Requirements for an Art Applicant
The main thing we look for in an art applicant’s portfolio is evidence of creative ability. Your portfolio demonstrates your ability to imagine and realise a creative piece of work. It tells us about the medium you’re most familiar with, whether it is a traditional medium such as pens, pencil or charcoal or a particular type of software, such as Photoshop.
Seeing your portfolio proves to us that you can take something down the creative process from concept to presentation. We are open to anything creative in a portfolio. In the past we’ve seen sketches, paintings, video clips, animation, multimedia, sculpture, photography, life drawing and graphic design. We’ve also seen some non-traditional portfolios such as cars with awesome airbrushed murals and photos of interior design work in various mansions. We recommend that students pick at least 3 - 5 examples of their work to show. You can bring in a physical portfolio or, digitally, on CD, DVD, USB flash drive or laptop.
Portfolio Requirements for a Programming Applicant
Applicants for our game programming courses also need to bring along a portfolio of work. These are usually in the form of digital files on CD, DVD, USB flash drive or laptop. We are looking for an aptitude for programming shown through programming or scripting in any language. We would like to see actual code samples as well as the compiled working application. In previous years students have brought in Visual Basic projects, Flash/ActionScript files and custom databases right up to iPhone and Java apps, multi-media projects and game mods.
In terms of formal pre-requisites, good results in Software Development, Information Technology, Maths and Physics are useful indicators but not always essential. If you have an aptitude for programming and logic and a passion for games, we want to talk to you.
