Westwood College Online

[pirahna1]

Yea, fuck Westwood Online

http://online.degree.net/online-degree- ... e-448.html
and
http://career.studentsreview.com/detail ... Technology

[Obev]

109k for 144 credits (4 years)? Cheap by today's standards.

Suddenly, I love England again.

[Darus Grey]

Going to college for game-design is a bad move...it leads no where.

Get a general comp sci degree for when you realize the pay is shit, the hours are long, and you'd make 5x more pay at an eaiser job.

A long time ago I had this same idea, and after working in the industry a couple years I said fuck it. The only place you'd ever enjoy the game industry is if you're on the top. And it's simpler to be successful somewhere else in life and then build/buy your own developer label than it is to work from the ground up.

If you're absolutely serious about it I wouldn't go anywhere but Digipen, it's the only game school in North America who has a reputation for being anything besides a joke.

[Angelsin]

109k for 144 credits (4 years)? Cheap by today's standards.

Suddenly, I love England again.

Wierd. I'm from Canada and went to the US to go to school. It cost me about 40k in student loans. That's CAD too which was about 26k in USD at the time (yeah I got raped by exchange rates). I also had to work but I wasn't allowed to work full time being an international student so I made like 10k a year for 4 years. I had 2 roommates which made living very comfortable for me and my budget. Overall not all that bad.

[Tyche]

There was a study out that polled a number executives to ask them how they perceived online degrees vs their classroom counterparts. Something like 90% seen them as equals. On the same token, 99% of executives said they'd hire someone with experience and no degree over someone with no experience and a post graduate degree. What should come out of this, get your undergrad and start getting your foot in the door. I'm looking for the study, but I don't know where to find it. It was a discussion topic on the radio.

Also, I've taken a couple of online courses and I hate them passionately.

[Tormentormike]

What's so wrong with Full Sail? I just visited there a week ago and it seems like an awesome place. Just because of the class hours? Money issues?

[Kaelan]

I'm planning on going there this fall (along with my fiance) for Game Development (she's taking Game Design). Anyone on BG attend or know anyone who attends Westwood, specifically for Games Design/Development? I'm just trying to get a few opinions/suggestions before we start.

Anything we should be concerned about, any profs to avoid, *insert random college question*?

Do your research on this first. Getting a degree specifically on games is still relatively new and there's quite a few differences from your normal standard majors, even between game programming versus your average CS major. I don't know how the other game colleges are like, but I've done several times more programming in one semester at DigiPen than I did during the entire year I spent on a CS major prior to coming here.

Digipen is very worth it if that's what you really want to do. On the upside, their placement rate is extremely high, companies come to them looking for prospective hires all the time so if you know your shit you're pretty much guaranteed all the exposure to the industry (and, more importantly, the people who may be hiring you) you can get prior to graduating, they place student games on IGF every year (sometimes they even place student games in the professional category), several of the instructors were actually working in the industry at one point or another, and you get access to tons and tons of things you wouldn't really be able to get in a college like, say, Westwood (i.e. guest lectures and panels given by people who are actually making games right now; if you're in the art side you might end up getting a chance to talk and listen to people who do animating for disney, if you're in programming you might be able to talk to the people in Valve that were behind the code on Portal, etc).

On the downside, the reason its so successful is it's hard. Regardless of what course you take, the course load is pretty damn intensive and you'll really kind of have to abandon the notion of ever having any significant amount of free time on your hands if you want to learn everything you need to learn properly. There's a pretty large dropout rate, usually people who either don't realize how hard what they're trying to get into is before going in or people who just buckle under the pressure and decide to do something easier (like maybe take a generic CS major or something of the sort). Several people I know have had their team members drop out during the semester and one of the guys that was on my freshman game project team just decided he's quitting before next semester starts.

What you should do is, like I said, do your research on it, if you really are seriously considering X, Y and Z colleges, then if at all possible go visit them and check out what the place and the people are like, what do they offer, etc. I know DP for one (and I'm guessing any of the other colleges that are any good) have plenty of open house events, can schedule with someone on the inside to show you around campus and give you a better explanation on how they do things and stuff like that. There's even this "student shadow" thing they do during summer where you can actually get a volunteer from the people during summer classes whom you can hang with and actually sit with for a few classes over several days to see what it actually is like. Whatever you do, don't pick a college just because it looks good on paper without hearing from other people who might know more about it and, if at all possible, taking a close look for yourself.

[zoobernut]

I'm planning on going there this fall (along with my fiance) for Game Development (she's taking Game Design). Anyone on BG attend or know anyone who attends Westwood, specifically for Games Design/Development? I'm just trying to get a few opinions/suggestions before we start.

Anything we should be concerned about, any profs to avoid, *insert random college question*?

I recently graduated from The Art Institute in California San Francisco another for-profit chain college type place. My experience there was good I learned a lot and now I have a good job. The one major thing I learned about getting a degree that is game related is because these degrees are new and the industry is art related, most companies really don't care at all what education you have or where you went to school.

The ONLY important thing when applying for a game job is your PORTFOLIO/DEMO REEL! My time in college had no purpose beyond gathering as much knowledge and skill as I could to put together a demo reel at the end. No matter how good of a school you go to for an art related field if your demo reel at the end is shit then you wasted your money regardless of what kind of accreditation the school has or anything else. Accreditation is mostly important if you plan on going back to school for another degree later in time somewhere else.

The game industry in general is extremely hard to break into. Specially these days the competition is getting very tough. Good luck though if you are truly passionate about it you can do it, just don't expect it to be fun and easy, my last quarter I barely slept at all spending at least 20 hours on my computer a day.

[Penthesilea]

I live in the middle of PA. I can't move to either FL or WA and both Full Sail and DigiPen were my top colleges. Right now I'm in a CC and they're fucking me up the ass and took away all my financial aid and no schools in PA have Game Design. I'm stuck going to an online college.

As an aside, they're super fucking nice. I've never seen their commercials, I heard of them through multiple Game Design textbooks.

http://www.drexel.edu/westphal/academic ... italmedia/

Drexel has a program, not sure if Tyler School of Art (Temple) does or not.

[Nestre]

http://www.igda.org/Forums/showthread.p ... genumber=1

Definitely worth a read if you're serious about getting an education in the field.

[walks]

I live in the middle of PA. I can't move to either FL or WA and both Full Sail and DigiPen were my top colleges. Right now I'm in a CC and they're fucking me up the ass and took away all my financial aid and no schools in PA have Game Design. I'm stuck going to an online college.

As an aside, they're super fucking nice. I've never seen their commercials, I heard of them through multiple Game Design textbooks.

http://www.drexel.edu/westphal/academic ... italmedia/

Drexel has a program, not sure if Tyler School of Art (Temple) does or not.

Damn, I wish they had it (Gaming) when I went to Drexel :/

[Nystul]

you'd be shooting yourself in the foot going to a game design-specific school.

Look, I know everything seems awesome right now but lets not forget that the LAST time everything was super awesome in gaming, the bottom fell out and the industry nearly died. This is neither a stable industry, NOR is the job you get in it stable. Development houses are in constant flux, breaking, merging, bought by larger companies, sold off etc...this is not job security.

If you DO want to go into this, thats fine. You're not far from Penn State. Enroll, get financial aid if you have to, thousands of people with less money than you go to good schools like this every year. Get a degree in comp sci. You can transition that into game design if you want. But more importantly, it provides you with a useful degree in a large, stable industry (though the economy is in recession, computer technology is one of the few areas still growing) where you can get a job if things blow up in your face in the game design thing. If you just get a game design degree, leaving that and going into some other industry will be VERY hard.

[Beckwin]

I'm trying to get into the art side of things, but from all the reading and talking-to I've done about the gaming industry, you are never really gonna get hired right out of any school to be a Designer. People already in the industry are gonna want their shots first, and proven designers get to keep on doing that. I kinda feel like "Game Design" is a misnomer for most programs; I think only a select few schools can really offer that now as is (stuff like DigiPen). It sounds like you primarily get a programming degree, and when it comes down to having a Programming Degree or a BS in Computer Science, you're generally gonna be better off with the latter if you do anything outside of games, and it certainly wouldn't be a negative in the industry either.

As someone said before, portfolioportfolioportfolio. That's what seems to really matter, especially from the art side. The program I went through didn't start emphasizing that nearly enough until (imo) too late, and on my own fault, I didn't focus on it early enough myself- I perhaps got too caught up in Fine Art stuff and just being a college student, I guess. So I'm playing catch-up now. But as disappointed as I am with my program's shortcomings in real-world preparation (particularly in commercial fields), I am glad I'll have a BFA and the options that opens- grad school, a quicker time coming back for another bachelor's, teaching cert -> becoming a teacher, gallery/museum work, and just basic employer confidence in artistic knowledge and ability.

Also: no debt. zero zilch nada.

[Kaelan]

you'd be shooting yourself in the foot going to a game design-specific school.

That's only true if he only takes a design specific program (which I recommend you don't, trying to get in as a designer fresh from college is a bad idea). The game programming courses are generally everything you learn in a regular CS degree and then a ton of extra stuff on top of that, due to the fact that you have to learn how to integrate efficient programming, graphics, audio, physics, networking and of course, learn how to work on large projects with small teams. Usually if you can program games well, you can program pretty much anything else and should be able to get a job doing software development or whatnot somewhere else if you really want to.

I'm not that familiar with the art degrees, but given how hard the art students over here get drilled and the tools they learn how to use, I figure the same goes for them as well in their field. You can always check out the student pages from graduates to take a rough look at what they did.

But yeah, like mentioned above, portfolio is the most important thing when you graduate, and not just for art students. Being able to show code samples and complete projects you've worked on (and what you did, specifically) is really important.

[zoobernut]

you'd be shooting yourself in the foot going to a game design-specific school.

Look, I know everything seems awesome right now but lets not forget that the LAST time everything was super awesome in gaming, the bottom fell out and the industry nearly died. This is neither a stable industry, NOR is the job you get in it stable. Development houses are in constant flux, breaking, merging, bought by larger companies, sold off etc...this is not job security.

If you DO want to go into this, thats fine. You're not far from Penn State. Enroll, get financial aid if you have to, thousands of people with less money than you go to good schools like this every year. Get a degree in comp sci. You can transition that into game design if you want. But more importantly, it provides you with a useful degree in a large, stable industry (though the economy is in recession, computer technology is one of the few areas still growing) where you can get a job if things blow up in your face in the game design thing. If you just get a game design degree, leaving that and going into some other industry will be VERY hard.

I went to school specifically for game design and art and I don't feel like I shot myself in the foot. I focused on Technical Art (rigging and scripting) and now I have a stable good job I am satisfied with. This is over generalization. It really depends on your personality if you are the type of person who can sit down and teach yourself how to do game modeling well and game specific textures then I would not recommend a game college to you. I have a hard time just sitting down and teaching myself those programs and learning the principles of modeling and texturing for games so the school was a good option for me and taught me a lot. I have several friends I graduated with that all have art jobs at other game companies too. It really depends on how motivated you are after you graduate.

[Nystul]

In the end,though, if you go to a game design specific school at the end of it you're qualified to...design games.

If you go to a 4 year university and get a BS in comp sci you're qualified to do a lot of things including game design. Things may be working out for you right now but what if the industry has issues? You have a degree that provides you with basically one thing you can do. My fiance is a nurse. She specializes in oncology. But she can be a nurse doing just about any specialty. If they cured cancer tomorrow she'd still be able to find a job. If she decides she's tired of working with cancer patients she can find another job. It affords her flexibility. A degree in Biology allows you to do a lot of things (teach, graduate school, research, biotech industry, medicine, etc). But a degree in game design doesn't afford you much flexibility. If we are going into a recession (and...we are) one of the first things thats hit hard is the entertainment industry.

Why NOT spend some time now in life getting yourself set up for the next 40 years? If you're 20, whats some extra time and effort now to make sure you have better security and flexibility down the road? It *could* work out for you and people like you, sure. But you're shooting yourself in the foot in terms of the options you have down the road.


**edit** also, fear these opinions for I share them with Beckwin...yeah. We agree on something. It's snowing in hell as we speak.

[zoobernut]

The name Game Design as a major or program at a school is a misleading name. I cannot speak for other schools but at my school it was not a Game Design major it was an everything game related major. The only thing we did not do was hardcore programming. However we did game design, level design, animation, 2d art creation, 3d art creation (modeling, texturing), learned photoshop aftereffects maya and max extensively, learned scripting in several different applications, and learned rigging.

This all was done in a manner that catered towards Games just like when your fiance studied nursing I am sure she concentrated on oncology however the knowledge she gained could be applied to different areas. In the same way the program I participated in concentrated on Games and how all these things related to Games however that in no way limits my ability to get any job that utilizes the skills I learned. Some of the people I knew in school did not get jobs with game companies yes but one of them works for Disney Animation studios another works at Pixar. Another works at an advertising agency. Another works for a news company.

Again I think you are over generalizing and being quite narrow minded.

edit: I agree with what Beckwin posted above, and its worth restating THE MOST important thing when getting an art job is your portfolio or demo reel.

[Beckwin]

To be fair, Nystul, it's not so cut and dry. There are a lot of specifics and particulars that game-oriented commercial schools offer that traditional universities do not (yet). And those things do make it easier to get a job in the game industry, and they do push you in the right direction to having a good portfolio/demo reel. This works great if you can afford the tuition and are dead-set on a gaming job, and have some sort of talent. However, I've heard some mixed/negative things about Collins, Westwood, and even some of the Art Institutes.

Looking at recent digipen grad websites for art/animation, I feel a bit better (and I don't mean that as a knock against digipen; the work was rather good). I may not have the technical polish or industry-specific stuff, but I think talent-wise I'm sitting ok and I definitely stack up well in terms of traditional drawing and whatnot (www.danisbell.com if anyone wants to take a look-see). The real intimidating shit from an art standpoint is the Vancouver Film Institute and Supinfocom grad projects- that stuff oozes professional/amazing. They'll generally work in teams for 2 years on a 3-5minute short and it pays off (in contrast, I didn't really get into the computer side of things at my 4 year university until I was a junior :/ ). Although their aim is generally toward film graphics/animation rather than a game job. And for strictly animation, there's actually an online school (animationmentor.com) that's boasting really high job placement rates and turning out some pretty quality stuff.

[Nystul]

Oh, I'm sure that the game design-specific schools provide you with...more specific training. However, I'm assuming these aren't 4 year programs. Is that wrong? I was assuming that these are 2 or so year deals. If thats the case, then why NOT get a 4 year degree then just go to a specific school to get that? You'll have your 4 year degree in the back pocket, you'll have a leg up in terms of training going into the game design school...it's win win. I know it's "Another 2 years!" and all but damned if it won't pay off the rest of your life.

[zoobernut]

The one I participated in was a 4 year program for sure some people took even longer because you cannot graduate without creating a 1.5-3minute demo reel that has approval from the Dean of the department and your professor. And like I said just because these are called Game Design programs does not mean you cannot apply the knowledge to other fields of digital art. If you are halfway smart and even 1/4 decent at it there are tons and tons of jobs out there that utilize the same skills as what you learn in a Game Design and Art major.

edit: Assumptions get you into an area where you start talking about something without covering your bases and lead to leaving out many scenarios.