By Umar Arancibia, Oscar Hernandez, Trevon Madere and Alexis Sanchez
Staff Writers
The Electronic Arts campus was almost like a college campus, including a big grass field in the center of all of the buildings. One building was a gym that featured a sauna and a massage room. This building also housed the basketball courts that real-life NBA players play on, which gets translated into the game. That building also included one of the two EA cafeterias and a martial arts room.
Patrick Foster, product manager of EA, showed a display timeline of EA over the years, from when they were first founded to now. Foster said, “This is where we start to figure out if we really want to stay in the game.” The same building also displays all of the awards EA has earned. Foster explained, “These are our internal awards that many of our big-time workers have earned.”
Electronic Arts is a perfect example of a company in the Bay Area that students would want to work at. It enables people with the dream of making video games to have the opportunity to do something that could benefit both their lives and their society. Working at EA combines the core skills of tech skills, communication skills, organization ability, management and problem solving. To get personal insight on how these skills can allow gamers to contribute not only to the company they’re working for but also to their community, we interviewed students from the Video Game Club at Summit Preparatory Charter High School about what they thought of tech companies in the Bay.
Prep sophomore Xavier Ramirez said, “Video games bring a lot of excitement and joy to children’s lives.” He said tech companies are “bringing jobs in our community to Silicon Valley, and they are high-paying jobs.”
Prep sophomore Ryan Call explained how the techniques tech companies use in business are also in our schools. “It’s a big impact since every student in this school has a computer, and there are two classes where you are involved with coding.”
The questions we asked the students were not only about contributing to the community, but also about what steps they are taking to prepare themselves to work in a company like EA. “You need to be creative and good with teamwork,” Ramirez said. That truth is shown in many ways at EA and also in other tech companies, as confirmed by Foster.
Call said, “You will need skills of designing or like stories – like in some types of games you need a story, and, of course, every game has a main character.” This shows how the act of using imagination and creativity is to your advantage when working at these big tech companies. Something as simple as the plot of a story can contribute so much to the company. Having a lot of creativity can bring the company to a brighter future.
What students are doing in their classes can get them closer to working at a company like EA. Ramirez said, “In gaming class we are using JavaScript, and that will affect us in our social life with the gaming community because we are already familiar with a certain formula so we are already prepared.” This shows how ready the youth in the Bay Area are to work in fields such as tech.
The tech companies in the Bay Area have made an extravagant impact on the community. Tesla, YouTube, Facebook, Google and EA all heavily contribute to the community. These companies bring joy as well as jobs.
Here is a look at the EA headquarters:
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