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[PurpleCurse]

Quick question,

I'm a senior in high school and I'm thinking, at this point, I want to program video games after college. I already have experience with programming because I go to a vocational school for computer programming. I have two potential majors I could take in college, Computer Science or Game Development. Even though game dev is wayyy more up my alley, I've heard that people that take game dev in college have a harder time getting a job in the industry than the people that take computer science.

Is this true?

[Aik]

What actual courses would you be doing as a game dev major vs as a computer science major? If they're more relevant to what you want to do, you should do that.

[PurpleCurse]

The courses for game dev seem much better suited to what I want to do, but I'm just wondering if companies would rather hire a computer science major than someone that took game dev.

[Lynx]

Why choose?  Dual major!   

[ink.inc]

cs degree and make games in your free time to build up a nice portfolio

thats what im doing anyway

[InfiniteStateMachine]

+1 for Computer Science degree. If you really enjoy making games you can do it in your free time and the better understanding of programming will make it a smoother process.

[Blademasterbobo]

You should link to the curriculum or something so people have a better idea of what's in the game dev degree. Chances are, job-wise, you'd be better off getting a CS degree. I'd extend the "do games outside of school" to "you probably won't actually learn much in either degree, everything you learn will have to be self taught. The degree is just a fancy piece of paper used as the bare minimum requirement to get a job and as a way to increase your pay by ~10k a year."

[InfiniteStateMachine]

yar that is the sad truth. I haven't learned a whole lot from school.

[AlexHW]

yar that is the sad truth. I haven't learned a whole lot from school.

which is why we need to return to the days of apprenticeships and reinsert learning into the workplace rather than leave it to these separate entities.

[rob]

you should major in gender studies

[InfiniteStateMachine]

yar that is the sad truth. I haven't learned a whole lot from school.

which is why we need to return to the days of apprenticeships and reinsert learning into the workplace rather than leave it to these separate entities.

I agree, 90% of my learning involved working with other coders on games who taught me. That and self-teaching.

I'm really just doing school for the paper and anything I can exploit from the program (co-op positions)

[Zack Bell]

I spent a year at one of those rip-off tech schools, a year at a "traditional" university, and now I'm wrapping up week two at DigiPen. I'd be willing to discuss the pros and cons of all of your options further, if you'd like.

 

[Andy Wolff]

I'm double-majoring in robotics engineering and a game development thing. If the program at your prospective school is anything like the one here, stay away from the games major. You'll learn a lot of it faster and better by studying computer science, anyway.

[rivon]

Is the uni education (especially the CS) so bad in the US? I thought that here in Czech Republic it would also be just a paper needed to get a job but I actually learned quite a lot of useful stuff in the first year (especially about how HW works - circuits -> logic gates -> automatons -> CPUs, or how OSes work - filesystems, scheduling, caching)...

[HöllenKobold]

no, game design programs are just really young and they have no idea how to teach it

[Fallsburg]

Is the uni education (especially the CS) so bad in the US? I thought that here in Czech Republic it would also be just a paper needed to get a job but I actually learned quite a lot of useful stuff in the first year (especially about how HW works - circuits -> logic gates -> automatons -> CPUs, or how OSes work - filesystems, scheduling, caching)...

Well, having attended two schools for CS, I'll say that the quality varies greatly depending on the school.

Some schools treat Computer Science as "the science of computers" and some treat it as "software engineering".  Personally, I'm of the camp that computer science as "the science of computers" is the way it should be done.  Software engineering is something that should be learned by doing, but learning the science portion is much better suited to the classroom portion.

I'd say learn computer science.  If you decide you don't want to make games, you'll have a degree that could get you a job in a different industry.  With the game degree, you'd be rather fucked.

[JuurianChi]

I choose neither!

Art and film degree for the win!

[Aik]

no, game design programs are just really young and they have no idea how to teach it

He said game development though, not design - I'm imagining stuff like 3D graphics, AI, real-time network programming, relevant math-stuff, etc. rather than a wanky useless design major.

My degree was a pretty even mix of useful games-related programming/engineering stuff and fucking useless UI design, web-design, etc. courses, and I wouldn't recommend something like that. If it's actually focused on actually, y'know - developing stuff, I can't see how that would be a drawback to do it over a CS major.

[CowBoyDan]

In my career as a programmer (non game), I've had one coworker that had a game programming degree.  He's the only person I've worked with that is currently unemployed.  The way I see it, the game programming degree is going to limit you to game programming jobs.  Where as computer science doesn't limit you.

Dont worry about what its going to teach you, it wont matter.  Chances are you'll have to learn whatever skills you need on the job.

Far more important than your degree is your resume.  If you go in for your first job and the only thing on your resume is your degree, you wont be getting a job. There are tons of graduates, you wont stand out.  You need an internship, I pet project worth noting, open source work, stuff you can put on your resume.

The guy I mentioned was doing QA when we worked together, his game programming degree didn't give anyone enough confidence to let him write code.

[HöllenKobold]

no, game design programs are just really young and they have no idea how to teach it

He said game development though, not design - I'm imagining stuff like 3D graphics, AI, real-time network programming, relevant math-stuff, etc. rather than a wanky useless design major.

My degree was a pretty even mix of useful games-related programming/engineering stuff and fucking useless UI design, web-design, etc. courses, and I wouldn't recommend something like that. If it's actually focused on actually, y'know - developing stuff, I can't see how that would be a drawback to do it over a CS major.

w/e i meant that