Trevor Tomey

Student Spotlight (2015)

Norco College student Trevor Tomey won two awards, including the top honor, at a June 6 ceremony that honored students in the college’s video game development program, which includes classes in art, design, audio and programming.

Tomey, 20, of Riverside, won the most outstanding student award and the best student award for the Game Studio Production course.

James Finley taught the Game Studio Production course. He described Tomey as a diligent student with a great work ethic. "He has an eye for programming and a talent for it," said Finley, who is also creative director and CEO of Broken Circle Studios, a video game development company in Riverside. "He is eager to assist and he is always pushing himself."

Tomey graduated from La Sierra High School in Riverside in 2010 and enrolled at Norco College later that year. Initially, he wasn't sure what he wanted to study so he took several introductory classes, including computer programming, electrical engineering and video game development.

After taking a second computer programming class, Advanced C++, which Finley taught, Tomey was hooked. He liked that programming was measurable and quantifiable and provided a way of putting things in order and building structure. He also was impressed by how Finley taught the class. "He took what is very much a science and made it fun," Tomey said. "That is very difficult to do."

Tomey then took the Beginning Level Design for Computer Games class, also taught by Finley. In that class he was introduced Unity 3D, a program that serves as a template for creating video games.

Afterwards, Tomey continued to tinker with Unity 3D on his own time, served as a student assistant when Finely taught the level design course and took other computer programming courses.

He has one more course to take before he earns his associate's degree in computer programming. In addition, in the fall, he plans to take programming courses focused on game development. Meanwhile, he will be looking for work. He hopes to land a job using Unity 3D to script mobile games. "I just want to get to work and start making games," he said.

BACK TO THE STUDENT HIGHLIGHTS PAGE