It’s a dilemma, I’m 16 years old, and well I have two more years left before I’m off to college. I want to make games, and I want to be successful. It’s not like my dream is very different, so it comes decision time of where I’m going to go to college. And to be honest I got my eyes set on full sail. You’ve all heard a good amount about it I hope. I was wondering as a game developer is a good choice and a good place to gain the needed experience. I need to know that I’ll land a job once I graduate. I’m probably going to go and take on two degrees a computer animation and a game developer. Please tell me if the industry is well aware of full sail, just give all the feedback you can. If you can recommend other places, colleges etc. Please I’m all ears. I’ve also considered UCLA and Stanford, my grades are up there so I’m not really limiting myself. I just want to know where I’m going to get the best education for my career.

Only you yourself can provide the best education possible.

As far as making games goes, I would look into current trends in the industry and the people working behind those trends and speculate where the games industry might be in three to six years time, so that you will be of a "greater value" to an employer than the next guy. Or if going it solo, be able to create something cutting edge.

You like 3d graphics? I hope your already working with them. Like any "art" they require time and passion. If your interested be interested in them now. Look at each school''s instructer and what his/her abilities are. Also look for possible industry coneections. If the teacher of your 3d class is on "good friends" with someone say on the Blizzard art team and he writes you a letter of recommendation and the Blizzard guy says your work is good take that into an interview with you. Of course they won''t say your good unless you are good...

Yes sir, Art is indeed a dangerous carear choice. As far as selecting a school? Don''t get conned into one of those technical schools that only give you some shiatty degree. You can go to any school with a decent arts program and probably do fine. It''s not what they can offer you but what you can offer yourself.

Do some more research. Get personal with the staff of prosect schools. Besides you have nothing but time on your hands right?

/end ramble

Thank you very much for that positive feedback, I was looking for a straight forward answer like yours. My biggest problem is that I am a fool for any program or coarse that offers somethign I like. I end up studing on my own becuase (from past high school experience) the educator has very limited knowladge in the field, and the industry. I''m curious to doing some research on the proffessors at these school and colleges but how? Most of the time they list people''s names. How do I find their e-mals in order to contact them? Should I maybe take a trip to a few of them. You see one of my major reasons for making a post here at GameDev is that I was hoping I could get in touch with a few game devs myself. Grads from fullsail, ucla, or others.

So once again thank you for your feedback and I''m still listening to what others have to say.

As far as interviewing schools a phone call should do. Call the school and ask for a pamphlet or a tour. If they are willing see if you can get into contact with some instructors there. Just explain your intentions politly and surely they will point you in the right directions. If you wrote a prospect instructor curious about a course or his knowlege of the subject matter chance are he would be happy to reply.

Showing (positive) personal interest in something or someone will almost surely result in a positive response. Say please and thank you, ask many people many meaningful questions and you should have a clear answer.

One other major thing to think about is debt. If you goto an expensive school make sure you can pay off the debt without much hassle so that you can get on with working with your passion of choice. It stinks to go to a school that costs 25,000 dollars a year and be stuck with a large debt. Going to lessor schools is ok as long as they don''t handiecap your learning ability. I go to a cheap school and I still don''t take advantage of it fully. I won''t even be looking at a $10,000 loan for the total of four years. I will be able to pay it off relatively quickly and get on to doing whatever it is I love to do (still don''t know yet)

If I had been motivated in highschool this is what I would have done. Well I hope I was of further help. PS sorry about the speeling but ehh I am lazy.

I can''t tell you what a good choice is, but I can tell you this - Whatever you do, don''t go to The Art Institute of Atlanta, they screwed me bad! Just some good advice there

Anyways, whatever your decision (I made mine when I was only 13 myself) make sure you''re well prepared and willing to take it all the way. Don''t do what I did either, I''m stuck doing this the hard way!

Good luck!

- Chris

Thanks for more constructive advice. And I''ll keep that in consideration concering Atlanta. If I were to go to full sail it would be 60k for tuition. Like I said I would be taking a double degree coarse which is why it''s so expensive. Now they said on their web site that they have great connections and what not and have a 77 or 78 percent employment rate after first 3 month. If I can take out a loan for six month after graduation. I could if I counted correctly pay off all depts in 2 years. I went to monster jobs and looked at the starting pay for some of the positions I would consider. Most started at 70k and higher. So I looked at it this way. I could suck it up for two more years keeping my spendings below 30k a year, and withing two years I would be able to pay off dept with little intrest. Anyway that''s my plan.

I seriously recommend against schools such as Full Sail.

More advisable, IMO, would be to go for a full on degree in Computer Science/Engineering at a state (or private, if the cost isn''t a problem) school. From there on, you''ll be able to pick up programming games fairly easily, and your experience in a much broader area allows you some room to fall back on (we all know that the gaming industry is a make-or-break one. Even great programmers are known to fail in garnering success).

For the art side of things, go for the relevant degree (I''m not sure what that is) at a state (or private) school.

If your grades are really top notch and you think you can handle a serious courseload, Digipen isn''t a bad choice, from what I hear.

But remember that game development can be a very difficult thing to be succesful at, and you want to diversify your education beyond that so that you have some fall-back.

Moo.

Besides Digipen, what colleges can you recommend precisely. Is UCLA a good choice? Do you know of any schools near east cost if possible. While I''m not limited by region it would be nice to go to a school in the east coast.

If you haven''t already, you should probably read this article. Not to say that you''d necessarily have the same problems he did; he was playing catch-up from the very beginning. For my money, though, I''d say go to a conventional college; it''ll be less work, and you can probably still find a place with a strong 3D art program. If your plans change down the road, Full Sail might be a tough sell to clueless employers outside the games industry who would sneer at someone graduating from a "trade school".

A couple notes:

Self-Directed Learning
Determination
Coffee

I''m not professional, but I''m at college now for computer programming.


- Rob Loach
Current Project: Upgrade to .NET and DirectX 9

"Do or do not. There is no try."
- Yoda