Samuel Abrams ’23 and Daniel Hickey ’20 are using their vision and skills at jobs with top-flight companies in the creative industry—Abrams for Universal Studios in Orlando, and Hickey for the video game company High Moon Studios in Carlsbad, California.
We talked with them to find out how Adelphi prepared them to land their dream jobs.
Samuel Abrams: A Ninja With a BFA
Abrams always knew he wanted to work in the arts. But a trip to Universal Studios in Orlando when he was 15 years old gave him a clear goal.
“I knew I wanted to work there as soon as I saw it,” he said. “My mom joked, ‘I am going to lose you to this place. You’ll be working here.’”
His mom was right. Abrams is now in the craft department at Universal repairing the elaborate, hand-sculpted fixtures around the theme park. He works nights at various areas in the park, making sure everything is perfect for the next day’s guests.
“We’re like ninjas,” he said. “You can’t work on the cool sculpture stuff in the day when the people are there.”
Abrams works on fixtures in Universal Orlando’s newest theme park, Universal Epic Adventure, which opened last year. He’s worked on sculptures for rides like The Wizarding World of Harry Potter: Ministry of Magic, How To Train Your Dragon: Isle of Berk, and Super Nintendo World, just to name a few. “I work all over,” he said. “Craft workers cover the entire park.”
Abrams earned a BFA in Studio Art at Adelphi. He credits the University for putting him on the path to the Universal job.
“My professors gave me the space to grow as an artist,” he said. “They let me work in whatever medium I wanted, even unconventional media.”
He said his professors initially encouraged him to be a fine artist. “I explained that I like the idea of gallery art, but I really wanted to make stuff for film and TV,” he said. “I wanted people to be able to touch my work and enjoy it.” His professors supported his goal and helped him do more applied work, he said. “Once they understood what I wanted, they helped me develop the skills I needed to get there.”
With his professors’ support, his senior thesis was a collection of sculptures of imaginary creatures that won the University’s Thomas McNulty Award for Excellence in Sculpture. After graduation, Abrams did gig work for two years, making store displays and props for TV shows and movies around New York. He landed a staff position at Universal last fall, and he loves his work.
“This is my dream job,” he said. “If Adelphi didn’t let me have the freedom to do what I wanted, I wouldn’t have gotten the position I have now,” Abrams said.
His mom doesn’t mind that, as she predicted, her son went to Florida to work at Universal. “I get her free tickets to the park whenever she comes down to visit, so she forgives me,” Abrams explained.
Daniel Hickey: “Learning to be independent and teach myself”
Hickey is a technical designer for High Moon Studios, where he works on the Zombies and Warzone modes of the popular video game Call of Duty. His mission there includes general programming and design work on quests in the game’s Zombies mode and on the seasonal updates of the Warzone mode.
“This is the job I always wanted,” he said. “I always wanted to be in the game industry, and I always wanted to be at the center of it all.”
High Moon Studios wasn’t the first step in his career, though. Graduating from Adelphi at the height of the pandemic, he got together with two friends to work on games and build their résumés. It paid off, helping him land a contract to work as a programmer and designer on Postal 4: No Regrets, the first-shooter game from Running With Scissors.
“That was a fun time, because I’m very, very locked in and focused on the action of video games,” Hickey said. “Anything to do with player combat is where I want to be in the driver’s seat of design and programming-wise.” Then he spent 10 months working for Mob Games on its Poppy Playtime game. All the indie work gave him a résumé that helped him land the job at High Moon, he said.
That same energy and drive had pushed Hickey to transfer to Adelphi from the New York City College of Technology to take advantage of the University’s new minor in video game design. Hickey majored in information systems, and said the program was solid preparation for being a game developer. “It’s a blend of business operation and computer science,” he said.
The skills he learned in the program have made him better able to work in the highly collaborative atmosphere of game development, where programmers, artists, sound designers and other teams work together to create the final product. “I learned to communicate with everybody, which helps us work smoothly,” he said.
Hickey said he was able to get the personal attention at Adelphi that he needed to succeed. “The school let me get close to all of my professors,” he said. “Honestly, I wasn’t the best student. I only saw school as a formality; I just wanted to make games.” His professors helped him channel his desire for hands-on experience and encouraged his entrepreneurial streak by pointing him toward clubs and independent studies.
Taking his professor’s advice, he dove into extracurricular activities. He got an internship with the Electronic Gaming Federation (EGF), which runs esports tournaments, and founded Adelphi’s Esports club. He did so well in the internship that his boss recommended him for a position as a student ambassador for Unity Technologies, which connected him with game creators around the world. He became president of the campus chapter of the International Game Developers Association (IGDA), turning the club into a group where students could work together on projects in the game development lab on campus. And he was a teaching assistant for Professor Lee Stemkoski, PhD’s video game course in Adelphi’s Pre-College Program.
One of the most important lessons he learned at Adelphi? “Dr. Stemkoski encouraged me to be independent and teach myself,” he said. “That’s a skill that keeps you learning for your entire life, even when you are out of school.”