On Wednesday 13 and Thursday 14 July, our Confetti Class of 2022 arrived back on campus to celebrate their achievements alongside family and friends. Donning their cap and gowns they looked every bit ready to start their next big adventure. Congratulations to all, we are sure they will go on to have hugely successful careers in the creative industries.
Confetti Student of the Year
A special congratulations goes out to Ellie Torrance (BA Music Performance) who received this year’s Confetti Student of the Year award.
Ellie has been a superb student and equally excellent singer-songwriter. As well as being a steadfast Student Ambassador this year, she also took a lead role as one of the CERT student mentors for Music Performance. Ellie’s academic submissions showed skills, diligence and a real sense of scholarly practice. Ellie’s music is personal, heartfelt and honest, and her songs and production give an insight into her world view and can’t fail to move the listener. Her material is well crafted, well delivered and she has a real knack for finding the perfect foils for collaborative projects. Ellie has been a real asset to the course and Confetti for the last 3 years and we wish her well with the next steps in her journey. Well done Ellie, you smashed it!
Outstanding Alumna
This year we gave an extra special award to Victoria van Garrett, who graduated in 2013, in recognition of her significant achievements since completing her studies. The Outstanding Alumni award acknowledges the vital role graduates play in raising our profile as a Higher Education institution (alongside NTU), through their distinctive attainments, their professional successes and their contributions to society.
Victoria is a particularly deserving recipient of this award, she’s held several key positions in quality assurance in the games industry, including working as Senior QA Analyst and later QA Lead for Riot Games – the developers behind League of Legends, THE most-played PC game in the world and a key driver of the explosive growth of esports. Victoria has also worked as Senior QA Lead and Associate Producer for Splash Damage, and now QA Project Lead for PlayStation Studios!
Victoria started her career in the energy industry, working in customer service roles for 10 years. She wanted more, however, and decided to follow her long-standing interest in games by enrolling on a BTEC course in Games Technology. Following this, she completed a foundation degree in Games Technology at De Montfort University. She chose us for her BSc (Hons) Games Production, because of our strong industry focus, and it was when chatting to a speaker at Industry Week, that she realised she could combine her previous experience with what she had learned, and work in quality assurance in the games industry.
During her time studying at Confetti, Victoria was proactive in taking up all of the opportunities that were open to her, despite being a single parent and continuing to work throughout her studies. Like Ellie Torrance, Victoria won the Confetti Student of the Year award the year she graduated, the reward for which was a 2-day experience with Crytek, now Dambuster Studios, she credits this experience with giving her the edge that she needed when it came to securing her first job, working on her favourite game of all time, Assassins Creed! For Victoria, this was an extraordinary start to her work in the industry and a just reward after many years of hard work. Since then, she’s gone on to work on an impressive list of games, including Gears of War, Team Fight Tactics, and oh yes, League of Legends.
Victoria has consistently supported Confetti as her burgeoning career’s developed, enabling new generations of students to learn from her experiences and successes. We want to thank Victoria for her outstanding contributions and hope many of you reading this will be inspired by her story.
“Congratulations to this year’s graduates of Nottingham Trent University. I’d like to offer a special thank you to Confetti, especially their Games Technology team, without whom, I would not be here accepting this award. My journey through Confetti and into the games industry has been a story of passion and unwavering self-belief after a long period of being in a rather unsatisfying career. Thank you for the opportunity to be here today, and thank you for the award.” – Victoria van Garrett, Confetti Outstanding Alumna 2022
The graduation ceremony was live streamed with the support of our tech teams, including Confetti Live and Technical Events students doing it for real! You can watch the live stream back to relive the day over on YouTube.
Future You – life after NTU
Our support doesn’t end when you graduate. As an Confetti/NTU student, you are be entitled to dedicated careers support for up to three years after you complete your studies. You’ll have access to exclusive events, initiatives and work experience opportunities to support you in the early stages of your graduate career. Find out more and sign up to ‘Future You’ now.
Are you interested in attending events and getting hands on experience as part of your studies? Book onto an Open Day to find out more about all the opportunities on offer here at Confetti.
