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[quote name='VJ01' timestamp='1317434563' post='4867830']
I'd just quit goals of ranked university and get into a game programming school run by professionals.
At least, you'll get hands-on work beginning to end and practical mathematical education -- with excellent demonstrated and practical lessons and theoretical lectures. Then after few years work experience and I am sure they'll get you employed. go back and take some courses at a college. going through job listings on game producer home pages is endless filings after filings.
While we're on the topic of things that work great in theory, lets all turn to communism.
Not all professionals are great teachers or vice versa. There is a large difference between someone who has knowledge and someone who is able to pass that knowledge. You could have a professor with an IQ of 200 that's made 50 AAA games and founded multiple game studios, but it doesn't really do a lot for you if you don't actually learn anything from them. This is only one of the problems with your fictional dream school.
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Your fictional dream school is in every city. Where a F goes to C-. And a C to a B-. I dunno if there are other grades. Its not easy.
If you're picking the games course, you're chosing your career for a long time to come. Because if you want to switch into mainstream software engineering, you'll be competing against people with degrees in compsci from unis whose names everyone recognises.
As way2lazy2care up there comments -- developers? No probs. Chuck a brick, you'll hit three. Want a decent one? Hen's teeth. Even if you're good, your problem is trying to be signal that can be heard over that noise. Thirty years from now when people know your name or you've worked for good companies, that won't be an issue. A few years from now when you're just a graduate trying to get a first job, the main thing that will stand out on your CV is your uni and your course.
Even now, and it's been nearly 20 years, I STILL get agents and headhunters saying things like "Oh yeah, the client is really fussy and wants a proper degree from a proper uni... so... oh yes. THAT will do nicely..."
Having a regular compsci from a good name gives you more options. And the last thing you should be doing at your time in life is limiting the options you'll have for the next couple of decades.
If you have the option of being able to go to somewhere like MIT or CM or Stanford then 1) I'm jealous and 2) Take it. Because for the entire of the rest of your life you won't have to explain where you went to uni or why you picked to go there. You can apply for a job anywhere in the world, and you'll satisfy those niggling little "went to the right sort of school" hurdles.
And no games company is going to be turning down MIT CS grads if you apply there.
[quote name='VJ01' timestamp='1317447622' post='4867881']
Your fictional dream school is in every city. Where a F goes to C-. And a C to a B-. I dunno if there are other grades. Its not easy.
What?
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What? You don't know, professors are not free from flaws such as cheating. Students may be.
I'd just quit goals of ranked university and get into a game programming school run by professionals. At least, you'll get hands-on work beginning to end and practical mathematical education -- with excellent demonstrated and practical lessons and theoretical lectures. Then after few years work experience and I am sure they'll get you employed. go back and take some courses at a college. going through job listings on game producer home pages is endless filings after filings.
Work experience before getting employed? What does that even mean? If you mean "indie scene" work experience, unless you make another Minecraft the two years on the job training a guy with a CS degree got getting hired right out of college is worth a lot more playing around trying to make you own game.
If you just want to talk about random fantasies, how is a game design degree better then a midlevel state school for a BS in CS (maybe minor in math)? You already have a quarter of the debt from a game school. Unless you go to a MIT nobody actually cares where you went to school at for the most part. All accredited colleges teach more or less the same thing. The same can't be said for a game school as a lot of things are cut for that "hands-on" work. And as Katie said, if you ever want to move out of the game industry (12 hour days with a wife and kid don't last too long) you are going to be competing with regular CS degrees and most likely lacking in some theory fundamentals in favor of all that hands-on work you did.
