Went to school for Computer Systems Technology, and worked as a programmer for over a year doing business applications before doing games

I have them all: self-taught, college courses, and professional experience, in that order.

I am completely self taught, I've never even read a book on programming.

Quote: Original post by alnite
I have them all: self-taught, college courses, and professional experience, in that order.

Ditto, except in the opposite order.

OK, I lied. I'm not really a programmer. I do enjoy annoying the programmers at work by harassing them about the same bugs multiple times, though.

Did a bit of BASIC on the commodore 64 as a kid, played around with various bits'n'pieces (C, some asm) on the amiga and vms in high school.

Ended up doing a computer science degree, which turned into a physics/computing degree after the university closed the computer science dept. Mostly worked in C, C++ and various maths tools (matlab, etc).

Got a job writing C++ before I left uni and eventually moved to C# several years later.

Hey Nypyren, which game studio do you work for? I ask because I live in Eugene, Oregon as well. I recently met a few people working for Buzz Monkey.

Pants.

I learned everything I know from GDNet.

God help us all.

I think degrees are useless, a symptom of another underlying sickness. Bloated Corporations that must apply stupid algorithms due to their monolithic sizes. but that is another rant. However, I think University is important as it allows you to mature, get to meet smart people, gain opportunities and learn to think in ways you never would on your own. Its the interactions that's important.

The degrees themselves these days are a joke as universities are effectively becoming businesses where students = $$. You should attend a meeting how they congratulate themselves how many more students they plan to get, forgetting people sitting on stair of lectures halls for lack of space. Forcing people not meant for degrees in and thus lowering quality of education for all. personally, it is very saddening how streamlined it is to cruise through university get a masters and do absolutely nothing. A degree is nothing to be proud of.

sadly though, if you wish a job of any interest you need it. there are too many people and those who are true autodidacts are rare.

Quote: students == $$

Corrected [smile]

I'm self taught, too—though I'm going to university now. If for nothing else, the experience is worth it. Plus there are people here who actually know what their doing. I feel as if I'm getting smarter by osmosis.