Summer is coming to an end. For me, this meant leaving the regular workforce and returning to school. I have never had a summer job like testing games and it is surely an experience that I will never forget.

“Was QA what you expected?” A coworker asked me this during my last week. I was speechless. After all, what did I expect? I vaguely remember thinking that the testers sat on beanbag chairs with clipboards, staring intently at huge, glowing screens in a darkened room. This was not quite the reality, and the work environment certainly surprised me.

QA is typically a low-level, temporary job, so it attracts a wide variety of people. What I didn’t expect was finding so many smart people. It takes a certain kind of person to play games all day, and there were definitely a lot of passionate gamers. Questions like “Alliance or Horde?” are never out of place. People tended to have similar hobbies, like reading comics. News of free comics in the break room created a crowd that would rival that of a once-a-year designer bargain sale. I once had a conversation with a friend about how he used to hide his nerdiness from his friends, but when he became a tester, he suddenly felt like he was the least nerdy of us all.

I am certainly going to miss some things about my testing job. I had a lot of fun being one of the only girls. I would overhear guys talking about how their girlfriends did the most puzzling things or sharing dirty jokes. I was treated like one of the guys most of the time and it was a lot of fun. I kept thinking how ironic it is that I once wanted to be a journalist for womens’ magazines – I could’ve gathered great source material for an article about what men really think about when they’re not around their girlfriends.

The sense of camaraderie will probably be what I miss most. There’s an unmistakable bond that grows between people who spend nearly all day together (especially during overtime). By the end of my few months, I knew what my coworkers liked to eat and drink; I also knew many of their hobbies and most of their girlfriends’ names. It was fun to have inside jokes about our game and repeat the silliest lines at opportune moments. It’s weird to think that I left that entire world behind and I will never see most of those people again.

I’m really glad that I was able to spend a summer doing QA. It feels great to actually be a face behind a game – I ended the summer with my name in the credits of two games. I am proud to have been a part of my testing team and have a small piece in the production of a few games. I hope this is only one of many steps into my career in the video game industry.