If you are well educated, you will in general get paid more (and have a higher standard of living) in the US than in Europe. If you're part of the unfortunate poor, you're likely to do better in Europe (especially if you get sick).

Centers with lots of game companies seem to be San Diego/CA, Austin/TX and the Seattle/WA area. There are some in the Bay Area/CA, but it's really expensive to live here, and the area is somewhat dominated by EA with their well-known bent for removing your will to live.

Quote: Original post by hplus0603
If you are well educated, you will in general get paid more (and have a higher standard of living) in the US than in Europe. If you're part of the unfortunate poor, you're likely to do better in Europe (especially if you get sick).

Centers with lots of game companies seem to be San Diego/CA, Austin/TX and the Seattle/WA area. There are some in the Bay Area/CA, but it's really expensive to live here, and the area is somewhat dominated by EA with their well-known bent for removing your will to live.

EA sound painful!!

Sounds cool then.. I might start making serious considerations.. Oh just a question tho, kinda a big one:

This yr i'll graduate with a bachelor's degree in Computer Software Engineering and next summer again with a Master's in the same field (hopefully, by the grace of god).. So i'm curious?

Will my degree be recognised in the US or will I have to take some tests or something for it to hold..?

how long did it take at university to get that degree?

if it was 4 years, then yes it will probably be recognized by most people,

otherwise i dont know

Quote: Original post by Anonymous Poster
how long did it take at university to get that degree?

if it was 4 years, then yes it will probably be recognized by most people,

otherwise i dont know

Three yrs for the BEng and another yr for my MEng (although I fail to see how this is relevant to whether or not the qualification will be recognised in the US..)

Please explain?

Quote: Original post by ArchangelMorph

Quote: Original post by Anonymous Poster
how long did it take at university to get that degree?

if it was 4 years, then yes it will probably be recognized by most people,

otherwise i dont know

Three yrs for the BEng and another yr for my MEng (although I fail to see how this is relevant to whether or not the qualification will be recognised in the US..)

Please explain?

The only thing the US has is a notion of acredited universities. This is mostly just for tax and grant purposes. Otherwise, purley the decision of the employer. Degree's don't matter as much as you think in the US - unless they are from a really top school. In fact, I know a large number of people who never quite graduated, (employers don't often check or care) ;) It's just used as a proxy for expeirence (hence why you usually see, "College degree or equivalant expierence".

Depends what your bacherlors was in... we had someone whom did a non-software engineering related bachelors but did a Masters degree in Software Engineering and they were, to be frank, a bit rubbish when it came to working with the real code we already had here. Her skills were rather abstract rather then vocational, so instead of the C++ programmer we hired her to be - she ended up moving to more web things - because often she would end up creating more problems then she solved when working with the C++ team.

A masters is just a year after all, and pretty academic. No one is going to be employed straight "at the top" of their profession without having some kind of commerical experience first. A masters will, no doubt, help you get your foot in the door and that's the most important thing. Getting a job, ANY job straight after finishing your course is crucial, because that academic qualification is only worth something a limited time after graduating before employees start noticing the lack of work in the area (or perhaps unemployment fullstop) over academic excellence.

As far as general development jobs in the UK go, wereabouts you are in the UK is supposed to be one of the biggest growth areas. That and up north you actually have a slim chance of getting on the housing market.

My wife is American and we plan to move to the states in a few years time. Keeping tabs it seems for the moment offshoring is hurting the employment market in the states even more so then here in the UK as far as entry level jobs go. It will also be tough getting a visa and work in the states unless you get a big company to sponser you, as there are tons of skilled American people on the market right now fighting for jobs whom don't need the extra paperwork you would.

My wife has found being educated to Masters level in Britain and having a distinction Major from the states, and a marriage work visa, it is still very tough for her to get in to her chosen career. May be partially because of not being British and employers seeing that they might have to deal with visa things (despite them not having too).

Quote: The only thing the US has is a notion of acredited universities. This is mostly just for tax and grant purposes. Otherwise, purley the decision of the employer. Degree's don't matter as much as you think in the US - unless they are from a really top school. In fact, I know a large number of people who never quite graduated, (employers don't often check or care) ;) It's just used as a proxy for expeirence (hence why you usually see, "College degree or equivalant expierence".

ok..

So the best thing to do would be to work in the UK for maybe 2 yrs and then try to get maybe a transfer to the US maybe through the same company or just apply to a new one?

Also if I did decide to relocate then I'm assuming it would be on a permenant basis.. So taking this into consideration, granted if I did relocate under a company then i'd be given a work permit or something to allow me into the country legally is this correct?

If so do these things have duration periods and expirey dates on them or?
Also how would I go about applying for citizenship once I got over there? or would I not need to?



[Edited by - ArchangelMorph on March 29, 2005 5:26:38 AM]

Quote: Original post by ArchangelMorph

Quote: The only thing the US has is a notion of acredited universities. This is mostly just for tax and grant purposes. Otherwise, purley the decision of the employer. Degree's don't matter as much as you think in the US - unless they are from a really top school. In fact, I know a large number of people who never quite graduated, (employers don't often check or care) ;) It's just used as a proxy for expeirence (hence why you usually see, "College degree or equivalant expierence".

ok..

So the best thing to do would be to work in the UK for maybe 2 yrs and then try to get maybe a transfer to the US maybe through the same company or just apply to a new one?

Also if I did decide to relocate then I'm assuming it would be on a permenant basis.. So taking this into consideration, granted if I did relocate under a company then i'd be given a work permit or something to allow me into the country legally is this correct?

If so do these things have duration periods and expirey dates on them or?
Also how would I go about applying for citizenship once I got over there? or would I not need to?

Work for a big company. They will handle everything for you. It will take about 5 years to get a green card. Usually you work under an H1 visa until this. FYI: Microsoft is very good at this, and will pay for the entire relocation. They like college grads very much.

Quote: Original post by EvilDecl81
FYI: Microsoft is very good at this, and will pay for the entire relocation. They like college grads very much.

I don't think a simple full stop (period) divides those two sentences sufficiently. I rather think they need to be much farther apart because some people might think they mean that Microsoft will pay to relocate grads with no industry experience. To get a work visa to the US you need to show you have skills that a local doesn't and for that you need to have a good deal of industry experience under your belt. Companies do pay to relocate staff and help with visa applications but only if you can satisfy US immigration that your skills can't be found locally.

Quote: Will my degree be recognised in the US or will I have to take some tests or something for it to hold..?

If you're going into academia, or certain governmentally based organizations, then the actual transferrability or not of specific titles and credits may matter. If you want to work for a private sector company in the US, then any degree from any university is likely to "qualify" in the sense that your resume won't be discarded. Whether you actually learned anything, and whether you can actually work in a team and deliver the goods, is what determines whether you get hired, and whether you get retained.

Remember: many states in the US use at-will employment, which is not typically the case in Europe. This means that the employer can legally terminate your employment effective immediately for reasons such as not showing up, not delivering to plan, or not being a good team player. Whether a company WILL terminate your employment mostly has to do with your relation to your employer. Thus, paying careful attention to the specifics of your school may serve as a filter before the interview process, but the proof is, as they say, in the pudding.

However, I recommend that you don't embellish or lie on your resume. You should be prepared to back up anything and everything you put on there. Lieing on your resume is usually grounds for termination, and certainly grounds for not hiring you if it comes out before the contract is signed.

The biggest problem for you is probably going to be the green card / work visa.