Game programming colleges

I'm no expert at this but i think having a degree won't help much if you haven't got the talent,...... then again you must be pretty talented if you have both.....

[edited by - Crawl on March 1, 2003 5:34:59 PM]

Good to have both in case one doesn''t work out.

A 4 year degree and a bunch of very impressive and polished game/graphics demos that you''ve worked upon in your own spare time.

Well, seeing as I am enrolled (and plan to finish) college, another Associates degree in Computer Game development wouldn''t help? Or would it be equivalent to a few good demos of mine?

Check out the good Computer Science schools, I learned the basics of good code from Cal Poly at San Luis Obispo, CA and am developing a game based on all of the good mathematics and coding I learned there.
2 Classes in C, Pre-Calculus, Calculus and Calculus 2.

- Valles

What really matters is a completed game demo with code samples that show you know your stuff. You can get this by working on your own or by going to Full Sail/Digipen where part of the curriculum is making a game demo to show to employers. Just another degree on your resume isn''t going to mean much when you''re trying to find a job.

Deep demo will get you job anything else won''t. Most game companies want person with at least one game under their belt. I heard of recent layoffs and that even makes it more competitive. Any demo they do in school won''t cut it. The game demo needs to be pretty deep, couple thousand lines of code which schools won''t go into.

Okay, I have taken 3 courses of C++ back in high school, and scored a 4 on the Comp Sci AP test (whatever significance that is). I also have messed around with MFC, and am currently learning DirectX (and will have a game to post here shortly ).

Now, would going to one of these game development colleges help me in any way?

quote:

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Original post by Anonymous Poster
I would say that a game development school was the best option.
Digipen focuses specifically on Game Development, while Full Sail
also deals with other stuff like film, recording arts and computer animation. Therefore, I think that for a guy trying to get into the games industry, Digipen is the best choice (its also
much cheaper)

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Much cheaper? You have to be kidding me. According to the tuition costs I calculated based on the information on the digipen site the 4 year course costs $50,000 plus housing.

As for Full Sail''s film and animation stuff, those are different degree programs at most as a game design student you''ll spend 8 or so classes learning some of the basics so when you get out in the game industry and choose a specialty like sound programming you''ll know how a basic sound console operates, or if your doing an animation tool, how to build a timeline based interface that is similar to those currently in use by artists or movie professionals all around. Knowing things doesn''t work against you when trying to find a job.