What did you major in!?

[aria]

3) UNLESS YOU KNOW YOU'RE ABSOLUTELY SURE YOU WANT TO WORK IN GAME DEVELOPMENT, DON'T DO IT. As others have said earlier, it's excrutiating work. The hours can be long and unforgiving- especially come crunch time. .

It looks like it doesn't really pay all that much either...unless you hit the royalty jack-pot...

myself, B.A. Int'l Relations; J.D.

 

[Nick Goracke]

Computer Science and Japanese.

Like any dork out of High School, I figured game design was the place to be. Maybe it is, I dunno, I'm not going to steer anyone away from it, but I got some pretty good advice from a 30-something Japanese TV producer who wound up in my Software Engineering class group. At the end of the day, you're just working with code. It doesn't matter if it's a game or a database application or an operating system - the actual work you'll end up doing is remarkably similar. Your job isn't a hobby, so don't treat it as such.

3 years in I pretty much lost interest in both areas of study, but stuck with it because the end was in sight. Accepted a job offer at IBM and studied for a while in Japan, with no real desire to do either, but they turned out to be 2 of the best decisions I ever made.

Why?

Both decisions, while not something I was not passionate about, opened up a lot of opportunities for me. Keep that in mind. What gives you the best chance to be successful 5-10 years down the road.

Veterinary school sounds promising. But if you still think computers are your thing, don't limit yourself by majoring in something like game design. It sounds attractive, but you're not giving yourself very good odds, if you know what I mean.

 

[melchia]

It looks like it doesn't really pay all that much either...unless you hit the royalty jack-pot...

myself, B.A. Int'l Relations; J.D.

what? no specializations? tsk tsk

dunno though, i know a couple of game designers...they actually get paid alright but the mad hours they work would steer me as far from that profession as possible (even worse than the crazy hours most new attorneys put in).

oh, and History has been my major of choice.

 

[aria]

what? no specializations? tsk tsk

There's no such thing as a specialization in law school It's a myth propogated by those who want to pretend they know about law school and the lower tier law schools that claim to have specialization programs in order to differentiate themselves from the pack. You don't find top law schools advertising specializations short of a full-on dual degree program with another school. All law schools have virtually the same 1st year (as per ABA accreditation), then allow a student to pick and choose a decent number of electives for the balance.

 

[BlackSpy]

Sculpture motherfuckers.

 

[Nesagwa]

Sculpture motherfuckers.

Really?

 

[norton9478]

History is where it's at....

With a BA in history, you can go just about anywheres.

 

[BlackSpy]

Really?

Yeah.

 

[Nesagwa]

Yeah.

Cool. Any cool ones to post?

 

[cafu1982]

BS economics
MS finance


currently studying for the CFA.

 

[Cavalry]

lots of cool stuff here. looks like the gheyness game designer idea is out of my head now..lol.

 

[Magnaflux]

History is where it's at....

With a BA in history, you can go just about anywheres.

McDonalds, Wendy's, Arby's, with so many options, you have a bright future ahead of you!

 

[norton9478]

McDonalds, Wendy's, Arby's, with so many options, you have a bright future ahead of you!

Yeah, it was part joke...

But seriously, you can do more than you think.... And it opens up doors for most non-scientifc Graduate programs....

A batchlors is just an extended HS diploma.....

Some are more vocational than others.

 

[Neco_Coneco]

Wow, good for you! Before I changed my major to Liberal Arts, I was a Comp. Sci. Major. I was actually almost done with all of the required courses too, but I changed my mind.

I was under the impression (like most people) that game programming would be an awesome job. In my second semester of C++, our final project was to make Asteroids. Just a simple game like that took 2 weeks for groups of 5 to figure out. It totally turned me off of programming, and most of my classmates as well. The class started off with over 40 students at the beginning of the semester, and by the end, there was only 15 of us.

Thanks,

I know how you feel. In my first semester there was 4 full classes (65 students) for CS100 by sophmore year it was down to about 30 people, now we have about 15 seniors with about 10 of us graduating on time.

I think CS is a very popular major due to the fact many people are like hell i like computers sounds like fun or yes we can make doom 4 next semester.

For me the first semester was a real jar too. I didnt know really what to expect and was surprised at all the math requirements. Programming was nothing like I imagined.

Our capstone course involved a group project that simulated working at a company with a full SDLC (software developement life cycle). It was a good experience and showed us all the side work that goes along with a program.

Its not a glamarous career but i hope my hard work paid off.

I am applying for a Junior Business System Analyst position at a local biotech plant were i have been interning the last few years. I really hope i can land it, the one thing that has been a major downer is how the cs job market has turned to shit.

Good luck with liberal arts great to do something you enjoy!

 

[Hidden Character]

Currently majoring in Music Education, although I can't do my intership and thus graduate from here until I'm certified to teach. Like I'm really looking forward to teaching if the state government passes a law that makes middle/high school kids pick a major. Hell, these kids don't even know what they want a week from now, much less asking a fifteen-year-old what they'll be majoring in the future.

 

[norton9478]

Thanks,

I know how you feel. In my first semester there was 4 full classes (65 students) for CS100 by sophmore year it was down to about 30 people, now we have about 15 seniors with about 10 of us graduating on time.

I think CS is a very popular major due to the fact many people are like hell i like computers sounds like fun or yes we can make doom 4 next semester.

For me the first semester was a real jar too. I didnt know really what to expect and was surprised at all the math requirements. Programming was nothing like I imagined.

Our capstone course involved a group project that simulated working at a company with a full SDLC (software developement life cycle). It was a good experience and showed us all the side work that goes along with a program.

Its not a glamarous career but i hope my hard work paid off.

I am applying for a Junior Business System Analyst position at a local biotech plant were i have been interning the last few years. I really hope i can land it, the one thing that has been a major downer is how the cs job market has turned to shit.

Good luck with liberal arts great to do something you enjoy!

I heard that Management of Info Systems is better...

 

[ki_atsushi]

Good luck with liberal arts great to do something you enjoy!

Thanks! I did have fun taking courses I wanted to take! I took electronics, welding, film, accounting, various business courses... all kinds of fun stuff. I could get a Bachelors in Accounting or Business easy... if I really wanted to anyway.

 

[melchia]

There's no such thing as a specialization in law school It's a myth propogated by those who want to pretend they know about law school and the lower tier law schools that claim to have specialization programs in order to differentiate themselves from the pack. You don't find top law schools advertising specializations short of a full-on dual degree program with another school. All law schools have virtually the same 1st year (as per ABA accreditation), then allow a student to pick and choose a decent number of electives for the balance.

allow me to rephrase...what? no LL.M. or S.J.D.? (and i know those are not mythical degrees)

 

[norton9478]

Thanks! I did have fun taking courses I wanted to take! I took electronics, welding, film, accounting, various business courses... all kinds of fun stuff. I could get a Bachelors in Accounting or Business easy... if I really wanted to anyway.

Yeah, my favorite class was Industrial/Org Psych... The class was filled with Buisness, Accounting and Finnance Majors... I got an A cuz of the curves...

Those people couldn't write a paper to save thier lives. And since the tests required more than just regurgitation of facts, they made it even easier on me.

 

[norton9478]

allow me to rephrase...what? no LL.M. or S.J.D.? (and i know those are not mythical degrees)

Sounds like something that PCDI would come up wit.....

 

[aria]

allow me to rephrase...what? no LL.M. or S.J.D.? (and i know those are not mythical degrees)

Yeah, they're fine if...

• LLM(1): you're a foreign lawyer who wants to learn the American system for work? (too bad, without a JD, you can only take the bar in NY and a few other states)
• LLM(2): You want to be a really nerdcore Tax lawyer?
• LLM(3): That 3rd or 4th tier JD ain't looking all that hot, is it? Maybe you should spruce up your resume with an extra year in a collection of elective classes you could take at most law schools as a JD.
• SJD (or JSD)(1): you're some weird freak of nature who want to be an academic locked away and publishing articles that only others like you will ever read.
• SJD(2): you're a foreign lawyer/law professor who wants to teach in the US. Better get one of these if you want to be taken seriously.

To 99% of lawyers and 95% of law professors... they're curiousities.

 

[WGolly]

I'm graduating this semeter with a psychology degree. I'm going back to get my teaching cert instead of grad school....

 

[Big Shady]

I have a Bachelor's of Science in Computer Engineering

A career in Game Developement

Planning to persue Masters in Computer Graphics.

Games to my name: Madden 2005, NFL Street 2, and Cosmic Blobs

Studying to become a "game designer" is a bad idea, but let me tell you why I like my career first. Now yeah, some of the hours are tough and long, but I personally love it. Now that I've cut my teeth, I demand certain standards of deceny related to work hours and pay. I'm currently making a healthy salary $60k+/year, I work no more than 60 hours tops (crunch week 80-90), and I'm only 23. Only EA made me work 100+ hours.

Now, becoming strictly a "game designer," those people are definitely not needed. Game designers, good ones at least, emerge from other facets of the development process, be it art, programming, modeling/level creation, music/audio, because to be a good designer you have to have an understanding of the nuts and bolts of game development, and the only way you're going to do that is by working from the bottom up. A person that just designs, yet has never written a line of code, model a single entity, created a piece of art, or written a piece of music for a game, would you really trust their decision making?

So what to major if you want to get into games? Well the defacto standard is Computer Science, but I'll try to break it down here.

1. Computer Science: a BS in CS will give you a broad understanding of high level computer languages and a fundamental understanding of data structures and algorithms. Throughout school make your projects as game oriented as possible. A perfect example of this is to make your capstone project a game.

2. Computer and Electrical Engineering: Similar to CS, but an understanding at a low level of programming and hardware development. Here you will grasp the low level concepts of computer hardware, memory management, whilst learning some high level stuff. Couple this with a CS minor and it makes you quite diverse. An EE would more likely work strictly on hardware, making controllers, graphics cards, sound systems, all low level stuff. Similar to CS, try to incorporate games as much as possible into your work. Example: my capstone project was an electronic version of the game mastermind.

3. Mathmatics and Physics: A more non-traditional route that will most likely require a CS minor. However, being an proficent Mathematican/Physcist, especially with a solid grasp on 3D concepts can definitely put you in a sweet niche of game developers.

4. The Arts: This is a tough route, but very doable. There are many, many, average artists, and only a few talented ones. How do they separate themselves from the pack? Increasing the range of their skill set. An artist that knows the digital medium well and knows the tools (Maya, 3ds Max, Adobe Suite, Macromedia Suite, and so on). Getting a basic understanding of programming and web development can go a long way to helping an aspiring artist too. The same can be applied to music/audio (I'm lumping it together, but they are 2 very important and different facets of development), become excellent at your craft, but learn the digital/computer side of it. An audio engineer has to be able to mix tracks and create sound affects all via a computer. I am not very familar with what programs they use, though.

So there is a basic, brief overview how you can educate yourself and prep for the games industry. There are other avenues, such as writing, but those 4 I am most familar with. I personally love it, but its definitely not for everyone. I really enjoy it because its the only job I found where I can really practice my craft in an extremely creative enviroment. Database programming/management, can only get so creative in those areas

Good luck and remember to enjoy the ride through college. It shouldn't be study, study, study all the time. If you have any questions, feel free to ping me.

 

[norton9478]

I really don't understand why anyone who likes Playing Games would ever want to Have a Job working on Games.

Once you get paid for something, it takes the fun out of it.

 

[Cavalry]

Thanks for the info Big Shady. It's cool to see you've come so far in the field. And $60k+/year, dang, thats not too shabby at all.

I auctually do not mind working the long hours. I am a perfectionist to the max. So I might look into getting a degree in computer science. I just want to do something i'll enjoy, and I can just not think of anything that I want to do as a career. That's why i'm picking your guys (and girl) brains.