Mayfair Welcomes Ms. Going!

Ms. Going is the new e-sports coach here at Mayfair. While her time here at Mayfair hasn’t been long, she has strong opinions about this school. Here are some questions to get to know our new coach!

Q: How has your time been at Mayfair thus far?

A: I have been having a lovely time at Mayfair, getting to know all of the students and all of the other teachers as well. I teach six classes of e-sports with both the middle and high schoolers, so I've been meeting all of the students across all of the grade levels

Q: What are some of your hobbies?

A: I do digital art, and I make costumes for anime conventions in my free time.

Q: What about Mayfair stands out to you?

A: Mayfair, I like that they have strong school spirit so far. With the assembly that I went to and the spirit week so far, it seems like kids are pretty competitive about the spirit, which is very fun. I also love that there are a lot of different electives. When I was in high school, we only had 6 classes, so we only had one elective. It's cool that there are more opportunities to have more electives because there are 8 classes total for the kids.

Q: What work experience did you have before working at Mayfair?

A: I was a special needs instructional aide at Mission Viejo High School. I was working one-on-one with some kids as a one-on-one aide. And in other classrooms, I was there to support the teacher, so kids with anxiety or adhd or some learning disabilities, I was there to support them in their classrooms so that they could be in classrooms with standard students while still getting the support and extra help that they needed.

Q: Is there anything you put a lot of passion into?

A: Costuming; it does take a lot of time, so you have to love it; otherwise, you'll never get it done. I think developing games definitely takes a lot of time and effort into it, not so much recently that I've started working here, but with my master's program that was 2 years working on one game to earn my master's degree, so I was very, very passionate about working a lot on that.”

Q: How do you wish to impact Mayfair?

A: I wanna help the kids at Mayfair see that even if they don't end up going into the game design industry, there are a lot of cool job opportunities. There are a lot of skills they can learn while making games in my class and playing games that are transferable to other things. For example, even if they don't go into the video game industry, they might learn some computer science skills, and maybe that will be helpful in different computer science-related jobs. Or if they are working on a project, they learn leadership skills, and that can help if they are working in an office setting or a production setting. So even though this is a specialized class for games and e-sports, I wanna help give them the skills that they're gonna need to succeed when it comes time to get a job in the real world.

Q: What drew you to work at Mayfair?

A: I applied to Mayfair because they do have this e-sports elective program. Not every school in the district and not every school in SoCal has gaming or e-sports as an elective. And thankfully, Mayfair does, so when I was finished with my master's degree, I was researching the different schools that had game design positions, and Mayfair ended up being the one that wanted to hire me, so this is where I ended up.

Q: What drew you to e-sports?

A: E-sports, I think, is interesting because you get to learn the game design side of things- what goes into making a game, why we play games, and why they are important to our culture right now. But on the other side of things, there are also management skills, production, and representing yourself, which is a very important skill to have. Especially now that the job market gets more competitive all the time, you wanna be able to represent yourself as someone confident and capable, and those are skills that a lot of e-sports players have because if you're trying to get assigned to an e-sports team, you need to be your own self-advocate. I also just loved games growing up and making them, so it's sorta always been the path I was on.

Q: What is your background in e-sports?

A: My background is more on the game design side of things, which is the making of the games, not necessarily being a competitive player. I’ve got my undergraduate in game design and my master's in game design, so a lot of my experience has to do with making games. I actually worked on an Indie team that put a game out on Steam, and I'm still working part-time kinda part time for another indie project, so more on the making-game side, but I do watch e-sports, so I have some experience in watching the sport.

Q: How do you feel about e-sports being a class?

A: A lot of kids are gonna play video games anyways; when they get home, they play Fortnite or Rocket League or whatever. So it's easier to get someone to care about an e-sports class than a math class. So if they are already interested in e-sports and they are willing to learn and be here and be excited, I think it is a good way to connect it to those job-hunting skills and those self-advocacy skills I mentioned earlier. I also think it's just good if you're doing 8 classes to have 1 class where it's like, “Alright, I don't have to memorize math equations; I can just relax and do something I am interested in”. I try not to give too much homework, because I just want this to be a place you can come in and just talk about games and have fun.

Q: What game did you develop?

A: It was kinda a small game called Sun Spear. It was a project that I started in my undergraduate degree, and then after we graduated, my two friends from college and I ended up wanting to finish it all the way, polish it, make it good, and publish it. It made a bit of money, so it was cool.

Q: What’s your background in e-sports?

A: Growing up, my family had to move a lot of times; at one point I had gone to 4 different schools in like the span of 5 years. Something that was always comforting to me when I was young, in elementary school, what helped me adjust to new places was playing games; whether it was bringing my consoles with me everywhere, it was a hobby I enjoyed but also connecting with other people. Being a ten-year-old, it is scary if you are going to a new school. So that’s always been something important, is the way that games kind of bring people together. I’ve always seen that in these classes, some of these kids don’t know each other, but during the first week I said, “Tell your table partner about your favorite,” and they bonded over the same games. So it’s something that you can bond over, and you can kind of have a community. I think that's important, especially in this generation; with things moving online, it can be hard to keep those connections when people are on their phones more. So it’s something that kind of has helped kids stay in contact with each other and find their group and find their people. So I hope that by teaching and by just kind of having the space in this class where kids can talk to each other about games.

Q: Anything else you want people to know?

A: “I eat too much popcorn. My favorite game is Hollow Knight. Right now I am really into Elden Ring; don't ask me to play Smash Bros; I am bad at it, but I am good at Mario Kart. Finally, my birthday is September 29th”

Thank you to Ms. Going for your time! We look forward to your participation on our campus!

Image Courtesy of Mia Castillo.