- IRISH 249
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- Senior Heroic Member
Old School Gamer and Proud Member of the Seventh Column
What other developer would step into the forums to offer higher learning advice to a fan. This is why I respect Bungie.
Posted by: Achronos
1. Be clear about what you want to do. Game Programming is not Game Design. And Game Programming could be many things: Graphics, Sound, Gameplay, Server, Networking, etc.
2. Getting a real job in the industry is less about where you go to school and more about what you do. If you're an artist, that's your demo reel. If you're a programmer, that's examples of your work. I'm not talking about your school assignments, either. I'm talking about your own stuff, the best examples of your work. A personal example - during college (I majored in Computer Science at Virginia Tech), I decided an excellent way (strange, but I tend to learn by doing better than reading about things) to learn both SQL and more advanced forms of Perl would be to reverse engineer Slashdot and make my own site with similar functionality... without looking at their source code. Eventually, it left me with a ZIP file of a working web site that made my resume stand out from other applicants despite not being a college kid (I got hired at Bungie right as I graduated college).
Everyone applying will have college degrees with decent grads from all kinds of schools. The ones that are interesting are the ones that have something extra.
Finally, understand that while a degree in a game-specific discipline can be a good thing, there is something to be said for a standard 4 year university degree. How do you decide? Visit your choices if at all possible. Again, another personal example: for the longest time I thought I wanted to go to Carnegie Mellon. Great program, top ratings, etc., etc. Then I visited both it and Virginia Tech's campus. I hated CMU - right in Pittsburgh, it was not the place for me. Ugh. VT was beautiful, and the professors and facilities impressed me a lot. Despite being accepted to attend CMU, I went to VT, and never regretted it.