Hey

well i actually go to UWMadison right now. Just for reference UWM is the abbreviation for UWMilwaukee. You had me confused for a moment. UWMadison is sometimes just called the U of WI, Madison, and mostly UW Madison. As far as the CS dept goes, I am a CS major. It is really wonderful, but as far as game design goes they offer courses but not a lot in game design until junior or senior year. The way that they teach CS here is much more focused on logic and overall design than an master languages. Specific language courses are offered either free by the Software Training for Students program or as a 1 to 2 credit elective. I so far really like it here. I mean I am focusing on game design and would rather have gone to Digi-Pen University but I can't afford it at the moment. I believe _Acid works for ravensoft ( i may be wrong) and he said that he has at least one coworker from madison. So it goes to show you that even graduating from a traditional university still puts you in the running to get a job with a top Video Game software company. There are a good number of CS majors here and many of which are focused on VG design. I found two buddies that I will be starting a project with soon for a 2D game and then we are going to try 3D. Considering I'm only a sophomore and we have not even touched 2D graphics this will be a learning experience for the other members of my team. I have been working with graphics on my own since last year. In sum, there is a lot of opportunity for independant study and networking here. I would advise in coming here if you are like me and cant afford 20k a year at Digi-Pen!

Sounds interesting-- I plan on going there soon. If I can get in right away (not sure if I will be able to or not because the standards sound pretty high), I'd be a freshman when you're a senior.

How hard is it to get into UW-Madison? My GPA is around a 3.3 or 3.4 (on a 4.0 scale). I've also heard that most applicants to UW-Madison have at least four years of foreign language-- is this true? Currently, I'm on the track of having three years of Spanish completed by the time I graduate from high school, so I've been considering doubling up next year (next year will be my senior year) so that I can get a fourth year in, though this may be pretty difficult (luckily, Spanish is one of my best classes).

I've also heard that your application essay is one of the most important parts of your application. I'm naturally adept in writing essays, so I'm hoping that will help me.

One last thing I'm wondering about is transferring. A friend told me that you can transfer into Madison easily if you spend one year at another university (for me, this would be UW-La Crosse if I went down that road).

Oh yeah this reminds me.. do you know a freshman by the name of Nate Allen? I used to work with him, dishwashing at a golf course's restaurant (Forest Hills) in La Crosse this last summer until he quit to go to college down in Madison. I don't know him very well because I only worked with him for about a week, but just wondering.

Thanks in advance for answering my questions if you can.

Hey, I've also recently joined the group though I'm not too active in the community here unless need be. Currently I'm at Northcentral Technical College up here around Wausau (mid-WI) and after I finish my Associates in Computer Programming I'm transferring to UW-Stout near Menomonie for the UW's Software Designer major and hopefully that'll be enough to get me started in some game company. In my spare time I'm working with a group of others developing a free online MMORPG that's actually got good graphics! (Fancy that! Free and decent!) Check us out at http://www.cyclologic.com or send me a mail @ crappyatticus@gmail.com if you wanna just chat about game/program development or ask about the game!!!

Later

Good luck with the project. :) Be sure to post on how it's going.