Everybody calls me Ben, I’m 27 years old and I’m in my second year studying BSc Computer Games Programming at the University of Derby.
This is my second foray into university. My first started in 2001 when I went to Keele to study nursing. This has led to me being a nurse for nearly five years. You may wonder why the hell I’m doing this now, as it’s such a change to what I have done in the past. The answer is that I want to enjoy what I’m doing when I come to work.
I’ll tell you a little bit about my job at the hospital. I am a ‘recovery practitioner’. That means that basically speaking, I wake patient’s up after operations and stabilize them medically before sending them back to a ward. It’s pretty high pressure and it can be pretty rewarding, and it’s given me some good management and emergency management experience.
So why games programming?
I’ve been playing games for… well… ever! I don’t just mean computer games either. In terms of non-computer games I mainly play Games Workshop games, and have written a few adaptations to existing rules systems that have been played and liked.
Outside of games and programming, I like to read as much as I can, about almost anything – although I avoid girly novels! From reading so much I have a pretty good understanding of a wide variety of topics. I am especially interested in economics, ethics, governments and civilisations as well as all sciences.
My most recent obsession is working on the P=NP question of computer science (for more info see www.claymath.org/millennium/.
I admit my main drive was the money at first, but it’s got to the stage where I actually enjoy messing around with the maths!
I guess the main thing about me is that I’m creative, and I think that’s the main reason that I’m doing what I’m doing now.
