Woman quits day job for 'Mickey Mouse degree' - and quadruples salary in 5 years

17 August 2023 , 13:24

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Victoria had an epiphany while crying at her desk (Image: The Confetti Institute of Creative Technologies)

A woman who was tired of dealing with "the worst of the worst" customer complaints at her call centre job managed to turn her life around completely after enrolling in a so-called "Mickey Mouse" degree. Victoria Van Garrett, 40, left school after sitting her GCSEs back in 1998 and went straight into call centre work in the energy industry, sticking at it for 10 years until finally breaking down in 2008.

It was during a tearful moment at her desk that long-time gamer Victoria had an epiphany. Looking up at the Assassin's Creed poster displayed above her desk, Victoria suddenly knew she wanted to make games, a realisation she likens to "a bolt of lightning".

Victoria had to put up with people laughing at her, but she's since proven them wrong (Joseph Raynor/ Nottingham Post)

Spurred into action, Victoria, enrolled on a BTEC course at what was then People's College in Nottingham at the age of 25, studying interactive and media game design from 2009 to 2011, all while still working at the call centre. Unfortunately, not everyone was supportive at first and Victoria had to put up with people laughing at her behind her back.

Victoria, who lives in Liverpool, remembered: "When I had my epiphany and I told everyone 'I'm going to work in video games', they were like, 'what are you doing? You are destroying your life'. They thought I was having a breakdown. I was ridiculed and had people laughing behind my back - until they realised how much self-belief I had. And it was that which carried me through and it put the doubters to bed. And now, nobody doubts me. If I say I'm going to do something, they know that I really will do it."

After completing her BTEC, Victoria signed up for a two-year, £6,000-a-year FdSc Games Technology 2013 course with The Confetti Institute of Creative Technologies, which is part of Nottingham Trent University. It was during this time that she finally left her £23,000 call centre job, at the age of 27.

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Reflecting on making the decision to quit her job, Victoria explained: "It was a matter of risk assessment. I asked myself what would be the worst thing that could happen. At the worst, I would wind up unemployed - and I had a support network to support that. And if I was willing to accept the absolute worst, then that it was not a risk as far as I was concerned or the risk was mitigated. So for me, it was a no-brainer."

At the end of her course, Victoria was awarded The Confetti Institute of Creative Technologies' games student, and earned herself work experience with game developer Crytek. She credits this as being the reason she got her first industry job, as she had no experience before that point.

With Crytek on her CV, Victoria began getting responses from employers, and managed to get a job with game publisher Ubisoft, after the interviewer spotted her full-sleeve Assassin's Creed tattoo. In what Victoria describes as a "dream come true", she made the move from Nottingham to Germany in May 2014, where she actually ended up working on the game that had first inspired her.

By 2016, Victoria was working as a Senior QA (Quality Assurance) Analyst at Riot Games in Dublin, as part of the League of Legends team. She then made another move to Splash Damage in 2017, where she worked on Gears of War for XBOX. Yet another move in May 2019, this time to Los Angeles, led to Victoria working with Riot Games once again, this time as QA Lead.

Within just five years, Victoria was pulling in an annual salary of £93,000, far more than she made in her call centre job. In 2022, Victoria was awarded an honorary degree for outstanding alumni by Nottingham Trent University, in recognition of her outstanding achievements. Nowadays, Victoria is working for PlayStation in Liverpool, helping to make multiplayer co-op games.

Victoria said: "You get out of it what you put in. There are five to 10 people from my year of my Confetti course that now work in the games industry. Those people were the grafters. They were the ones that absolutely wanted it. It's the ones who are serious, the ones who include extracurricular activity on top of their course that will go further. For those people, a 'Mickey Mouse degree' is life- changing. How many people get to say they're working in their dream job? Someone has to do this work and how do we teach them if we can't get them the work experience."

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Julia Banim