Is university a waste of time?

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Original post by staticVoid2 is it? how important is a degree in the games industry, to be honest I think I would learn more studying from home, and now that I have started uni (between that and work) I don't get one day off a week. how many people here have gone or are going to a university? is it a waste of time?

Well, out of the ~20 programmers at my company, every single one of the has a degree. Realize that getting a degree means a lot more than "learning how to make games". It shows that you have the fortitude to stick with something for four years, it offers you the chance to make connections, and it makes it a lot easier to learn a breadth of subjects that you'd probably overlook with personal studies.

You have to be a pretty hot shit programmer for someone to look at you if you don't have a degree. Oh, and don't expect your degree to actually make it past any HR departments, so you're going to be limited to only working with the little guys. Working with the little guys isn't necessarily a bad thing (I do), but you certainly won't find yourself working for pretty well any AAA companies. Not until you have at least a few years of professional experience, anyways.

I used to think a degree wasn't important when it came to coding in general. I was wrong. A degree is a good way to show that you are someone who can "get things done." It means you were able to focus on, and complete a long term task. This long term task also involves many short term tasks that you also had to focus on and complete. This alone is worth a lot to a prospective employer, game industry or not. Even if the material might not be exactly targeted to the industry you are trying to get into, it is more about what I said above than the content.

As far as game industry specific goes, throw some extra higher level math courses in. I feel it helps, and generally if you have a coding background you will learn more in math courses than programming courses.

Also, don't half-arse it if you do go to university. A degree with a 4.0 is generally better than a degree with a 3.0 (duh). =P Again, this isn't because it means you are 'smarter' necessarily (which it really doesn't), but that you have the ability to focus and complete projects.

Having a degree would also let you work other jobs in the software industry easier in case the game programming job didn't work out.

I'd highly recommend university to anyone hoping for a future software engineering job.

University isn't only about studying, it's an absolute must-have life experience, don't miss it if you ca, seriously. I've been out from it since 3 years now and I really miss the good old days, sometimes ;) It's the best time to have parties, meet people, etc. University should be the best time of your life, rather than a waste!

There's topics like math that are really hard to teach yourself sometimes. Things like physics can also be much easier to understand in a class environment. Then you have high level CS courses that you can take and learn some concepts you might not have known. Also all high level courses (I've taken 3 500 level classes) and they have team projects that force you to work with others.

Actually one of the classes I took was a games programming class they offered and that was the first time I've worked with others on a programming assignment. Being able to organize code and work with others at the same time on one project is a very good learning experience. Not to mention learning how to constructively deal with problems or disagreements.

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is it a waste of time?

Absolutely not.

Maybe not entirely for the reasons you believe it to be useful, but going to a college or university is extremely valuable.

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Original post by staticVoid2 is it? how important is a degree in the games industry, to be honest I think I would learn more studying from home, and now that I have started uni (between that and work) I don't get one day off a week. how many people here have gone or are going to a university? is it a waste of time?

Right now, you are probably right that you would learn more studying alone, but that's because no one learns anything in the first week of the first term of the first year. If the classes aren't "This is what we will be learning this term..." they are a gentle warm up to get everyone up to the same base level.

Maybe not next week, maybe not even this term, but soon, your eyes will be opened to the power of university education.

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Original post by janta University isn't only about studying, it's an absolute must-have life experience, don't miss it if you ca, seriously. I've been out from it since 3 years now and I really miss the good old days, sometimes ;) It's the best time to have parties, meet people, etc. University should be the best time of your life, rather than a waste!

No, this is a major problem with our education system right now, the fact that *everyone* should go to university, and that most people view university as a "life experience" rather than a means to education.

There are quite a few "professional" jobs that, at this time, require university degrees as conditions for hiring. However, the actual job duties often don't require specialized knowledge that couldn't be learned on the job or deduced by a reasonably intelligent person. The degree has become a "white collar union card". So, we have an entire generation of workers who have saddled themselves with needless debt.

The "life experience" aspect is not only flawed, it's pushing people who don't even have a specific purpose for going to university into university. What experiences in university do you have that you can't have outside of university? But because people think going to university is something they have to do as rite of passage, they go without a clearly defined purpose and only declare a major at the last minute.

Because so little emphasis is put on the actual education a person is supposed to receive at a university, a large number of people aren't using it as part of their selection criteria for a university. They're going deeply into debt to be able to attend expensive, private institutions for their prestige to study low salary potential subjects like social services.

Students suffocate under tens of thousands in loans.

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Tom Dillon, 19, a pre-pharmacy major at the University of Connecticut, is carrying $52,000 in student loans. And he's just getting started. When he gets his pharmacy doctorate in four years, he expects his debt to exceed $150,000. Dillon's been drawn to pharmacy since age 5, when he found out he had epilepsy. "The first person who helped me was my pharmacist," he says. Dillon, who no longer has epilepsy, would like to go into pharmaceutical research. But he knows he'd earn more money as a pharmacist for one of the big drugstore chains. ... And the cost of that debt is about to rise. On July 1 [2006], the rate on new federally guaranteed student loans will hit a fixed 6.8%, the highest rate since 2001. It comes as the average graduate owes $19,000. Many undergrads, though, have debt exceeding $40,000.

Granted, being a pharmacist pays a little better than being a welder, but when you have $150,000 in debt that you expect to pay off over the next 30 years, that's going to end up being a monthly payment of over $1,000. What does your projected earning potential have to be making loan payments as if you had bought a house, on top of the house you actually bought?

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Original post by _dagarach Quote: Original post by staticVoid2 is it? how important is a degree in the games industry, to be honest I think I would learn more studying from home, and now that I have started uni (between that and work) I don't get one day off a week. how many people here have gone or are going to a university? is it a waste of time? Right now, you are probably right that you would learn more studying alone, but that's because no one learns anything in the first week of the first term of the first year. If the classes aren't "This is what we will be learning this term..." they are a gentle warm up to get everyone up to the same base level. Maybe not next week, maybe not even this term, but soon, your eyes will be opened to the power of university education.

There is nothing that one does in university from an education standpoint that one cannot do on their own time. However, most people need their hand held through the process. They are incapable of setting their own goals and seeing them through. Most people live on autopilot, and therefore need a university in order to get on the right conveyor belt towards a more comfortable life.

Lifes a waste of time. Its just a matter of how you waste it :P

The question of whether university will actually benefit your skills is not the important thing. The important thing is that regardless of your talent, the majority of companies will not look at your application if you have no degree and no commercial experience. As soon as you've had a job as a programmer, your degree suddenly becomes much less important.

If you can find a way to get some commercial experience you can avoid uni (although I agree that is a bad choice), for instance write and sell some application or do a bunch of projects off RentaCoder.

No dude, you don't need to go to university, so do your competition a favor and take the easy road out. Nevermind the possibility that you'll have to change industries in middle age or whatnot. You can always get work as a short order cook or somesuch... [sick]

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Original post by capn_midnight No, this is a major problem with our education system right now, the fact that *everyone* should go to university, and that most people view university as a "life experience" rather than a means to education.

The original poster is from the UK, and unfortunately the same thing seems to be going on here.

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Original post by benryves Quote: Original post by capn_midnight No, this is a major problem with our education system right now, the fact that *everyone* should go to university, and that most people view university as a "life experience" rather than a means to education. The original poster is from the UK, and unfortunately the same thing seems to be going on here.

That.

The UK government seems to be hellbent on sending everyone through higher education of some kind, which results in Mickey Mouse courses at Donald Duck "Universities" pumping out garbage qualifications in garbage subjects for people that otherwise wouldn't bother. If somebody doesn't want a degree, let them not have one, let them work on a construction site, go into a vocational apprenticeship or learn a trade instead of trying to railroad them into Vending Machine Refill Sciences at Basildon Polytechnic. These degrees are often useless for the student and useless for the job market, I know I for one would rather have no degree than waste 3-4 years worth of time and money studying for something which is completely irrelevant and pointless to everyone except government statisticians. I personally can't see how anyone can garner satisfaction from wasting time, money and effort and graduate in something which would get them no further in life at all than no degree at all.

It is perceived to devalue education as a whole and I would agree in some ways. University isn't for everyone and the government here should stop trying to make it so; if I had kids who weren't aiming for high-flying education I'd be delighted if they decided to become hairdressers or electricians as opposed to doing a Mickey Mouse "degree". I'll quite possibly need an electrician or a plumber if things go wrong at my place, but I highly doubt I'll need somebody with a degree in Golf Science.

I think that university is definitely not a waste of time, but it might be a waste of money.
But as, capn_midnight said, university degree is the "white collar union card", and it will be very difficult or impossible to land a certain type of job without it. And often the main purpose of your degree is that your resume will not get tossed out by the otherwise clueless HR person by not meeting the basic requirement of having a degree - often ANY degree if it is at least a bachelor's.
I was "lucky" by being born in a country with free college education. Otherwise I can't imagine how could my family survive from my paycheck. Although I have a decent job working as a software developer; with stay at home wife, young daughter, $1100 rent, $600 car payment,etc., we are barely making it. Cant imagine having to pay a school loan payments on top of that.

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Original post by staticVoid2 is it? how important is a degree in the games industry, to be honest I think I would learn more studying from home, and now that I have started uni (between that and work) I don't get one day off a week. how many people here have gone or are going to a university? is it a waste of time?

Is it a waste of time? Hell no. Is it an absolute requirement for this field? No, but it REALLY helps get your foot in the door. If you don't have the degree, the road will be more difficult .. but if you have demonstrable skills and experience (and networking skills) it will make things much easier.

I don't have a bachelors degree and I got into a good web development position at my current workplace. I started out as a temporary intern, and then the next month they hired me on to a permanent position with decent pay. All I have is an associates (in computer programming), a few credits at a university and about 1 years experience doing some freelance web development.

Here's the kicker though: they didn't even care about the associates. What sealed me the position was the large, complicated web application I worked on with a client. Real-world experience > all. The problem is: obtaining this kind of professional real world experience can be difficult if you can't even get your foot in the door. This is where the degree comes in.

Only you can determine if uni will be right for you. Don't let anyone talk you into going because it's a must-have life experience (capn' touched on this well) and don't let anyone talk you out of it. Look at your current skill-set and determine if YOU want it. Determine if you will be able to deal with the financial burden while attending (and after you graduate).

Don't go if all you want to do is party and get laid. I have friends who went for those reasons (and those reasons alone) .. consequently, they failed out and are now working at local department stores trying to pay off their debts.

Yeah, this topic has been done to death on this forum in the past.

-You don't *need* the degree to get a programming job, if you've got the skills or the experience to make up for it.
-Whether you decide to go to university or not is entirely your decision. We can tell you what it's like and what we find valuable out of it, but that's it.
-Two competing job seekers, one with a degree and the other without: The one with a degree will probably get the job.
-Experience is worth more then a degree...in most cases.
-Most programming jobs require a Bachelors degree in CS.
-Some people benefit more from a degree then being self-taught.

College is invaluable, and that's without considering academics even.

I have a university degree in CS, and I am very very happy that I got it. There are a huge number of things I learned in University that I would have never learned by being self-taught, or learning on the job. I'm from Canada so we dont have nearly as many colleges as universites. I could be way out of line but my impression is that universities are in a totally different league above colleges.

If I were interviewing people for a serious position, I would definetely favor a 4 year degree over 4 years of professional experience.

For a simple code monkey job I might take the professional experience, if he was strictly a better coder. In the long run however, degree.

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Original post by AndreTheGiant If I were interviewing people for a serious position, I would definetely favor a 4 year degree over 4 years of professional experience.

I have to disagree with you here. Sort of anyway. Most likely, the person with 4 years of professional experience will know more than someone with a degree. Especially if the person with the degree has no experience.

However, this is something that depends on the person. If you're just a code monkey for 4 years than yeah, you might not know much. In any professional environment I assume you're required to constantly learn. I would assume this person would know more. To even have gotten the job in the first place as well.

Also someone with a 4 year degree could know nothing about writing optimized/readable/well documented code. At least not in a business environment. This is something the person with the experience would need to know. I'd wonder how they kept a job for 4 years if they didn't.

This is just my opinion though.