I dunno, I understand that personality and appearance are often worth quite a lot more than any actual skill, although you only really need a certain baseline before technical ability kicks in, but if all these people complaining about the poor social skills of some people, one would think they could use THEIR apparently masterful social skills to work around the kinks and get the most out of the people with limited social skills.

They could. But why would they?

People like working with people with whom they feel comfortable. The reality is that people with poor social skills have a tendency to make others (including those who also have poor social skills) uncomfortable. One party having good social skills cannot always make up for the other party having exceedingly poor social skills. So, why would someone with good social skills put up with someone who has poor social skills when individuals with both technical and social ability exist and are (more than likely) available to them, and can do the same job?

This is an interesting topic. When I went to university, the science/engineering students did engineering/science courses and the humanities students did humanities courses and ne'er the twain shall meet.

Thinking back now, I would have hated to have to sit an English lit. course. On a purely practical level, I never enjoyed writing papers on literature. I enjoyed reading, and even discussing themes etc, but I would have hated to be tested on it, because I know it would have dragged my grades down.

These days, I can appreciate the value in a broader education. I spend a lot of my time reading and learning about non-cs subjects (currently reading "The Better Angels of Our Nature" by Stephen Pinker, highly recommend it). But while I enjoy this, I'm still pretty sure I'd hate to have to sit down and write an essay on it.

So just because I dont like to take huminities class means I have poor social skills. How did you guys come to this conclusion?

Excuse me, but I DO have friends that are not CS majors and I talk about a wide variety of topics other then technical talk. I am aware of the current world affairs and what is going on, but I dont think i needed to waste my time in a political science class or history class. I mean I have been taking these classes since elementary school, I think I know by now.

So just because I dont like to take huminities class means I have poor social skills. How did you guys come to this conclusion?

If you actually read the thread, you'll see that nobody is making that connection. We're talking about being able to carry on a conversation outside one's own field, the lack of ability of which can come across as a lack of social skills. Since merely coming across as lacking social skills general subjects one to the negative impacts of that problem, it's related to the discussion, but the conclusion you think we're making isn't the one being made.

Excuse me, but I DO have friends that are not CS majors and I talk about a wide variety of topics other then technical talk.

Then you are not a "computer science drone" of the sort we're discussing.

I am aware of the current world affairs and what is going on, but I dont think i needed to waste my time in a political science class or history class. I mean I have been taking these classes since elementary school, I think I know by now.

Well, alright, fair enough; you've been exposed to those fields already. So what about something else, like the film studies course I mentioned? Did you study film before college? How about archaeology or ethics, or any other subject that no school covers pre-college? I took a fascinating course in ancient "near Eastern" archaeology when I was in 3rd year. I learned loads of interesting stuff about the ancient Egyptians, Sumerians, Akkadians, etc. I could never have taken that in middle or high school - there was nobody who could have taught such a class. I feel like you're focussing too much on the stuff you don't like, and are completely ignoring the stuff that you've never encountered, which you therefore cannot judge uninteresting.

I must say that I find the very rude comments about the OP here in the thread rather uncivilized and unmature. That also goes for one of the moderators here. No person should be called a child just because he dares to be critical of how a CS program is put together by an institute.

How about explaining more about what the non CS courses could be used for in the game dev business? How about more argumentation and less insulting?

Remember that bad communication skills will damage this site's reputation if not taken care of in time. Just my two bits(I do not like cents ).

If your college is re-hashing stuff that you learned in elementary school, maybe you need to find a better college altogether?

At the end of the day your complaints don't matter, least of all on an internet forum. If you don't fulfill the requirements of your program, then you don't get your degree. To paraphrase a certain infamous Secretary of Defense, you come into college with known-unknowns--you know that you need to learn about computer science--and there are unknown-unknowns--things that your lack of life experience leads you to believe are unnecessary and wasteful, but which people who are probably smarter than you or I believe are beneficial, if not necessary. As myself and others have pointed out, you'll need to interact with people from different backgrounds in your work life, and if you're interested in games, many of those people will be artists.

In other terms, I can personally attest that the difference between having a 'Eureka!' moment and passing by blissfully unaware, is often having that different perspective or some little piece of 'useless' information at hand which allows you to draw a dotted line between seemingly unrelated things. These moments will stand out in your work life, they keep you employed, they get you noticed, and they help get you promoted.

Furthermore, it becomes really, really hard to advance in your work life by being good at just one thing -- even, really, really good -- because there's bound to be many people with an essentially identical skill set. In my work as a technical writer for a large software company, I pull down a rather good living because I'm both a pretty decent programmer and a pretty decent writer -- I earn around the same as a programmer of like experience, maybe a bit more, even, and I don't have to deal with all the bullshit that job entails and I almost never work more than 40 hours per week (typical programmer here? 50-60 I'd guess.) My gaming background further allows me pick out areas that are interesting for me to work on -- stuff that relates to graphics, gaming, low-level coding. Right now I'm working on something really cool that I wish I could talk about, but can't. In another job I once interviewed for, the ideal candidate would have an astronomy background and it payed very well (about 2x my previous gig). You just never know what the job market is going to throw at you.

My point is that you'll always do best when you're ripe for opportunity; you do need deep technical skills, but broad, far-flung skills also come up far more frequently than you might expect.

That also goes for one of the moderators here. No person should be called a child just because he dare to be critical of how a CS program is put together by an institute.

Feel free to name me, I know what I wrote :)

More to the point I didn't say he WAS a child I said he sounded LIKE a child because he wasn't being critical he was whining much like a child does when they don't want to do something. I stand by the assertion too.

Still, now that I'm here again let me ask something; do they tell you up front that you have to do these class BEFORE you start the course?

When I applied to do my degree they gave us a complete course break down of the modules we'd be doing so I'm assuming it works the same way; you are given a break down of the classes which make up your major and then which other classes you need to take a head of time.

if all these people complaining about the poor social skills of some people, one would think they could use THEIR apparently masterful social skills to work around the kinks and get the most out of the people with limited social skills.

I worked with these people very successfully in college, where the admissions didn't weed them out, but I think you'll find that most tech company's hiring processes are finely tuned to prevent that type of person from stepping through the door.

On a purely practical level, I never enjoyed writing papers on literature. I enjoyed reading, and even discussing themes etc, but I would have hated to be tested on it, because I know it would have dragged my grades down.

I wouldn't say I exactly relished such papers, but I always used humanities classes to keep my grades up. Especially once I reached the CS grad courses, and shit got real.

No person should be called a child just because he dares to be critical of how a CS program is put together by an institute.

I'm not sure how to else characterise someone who comes and complains on an internet forum about how much his life sucks because he can't do exactly what he wants, other than "childish"...

I worked with these people very successfully in college, where the admissions didn't weed them out, but I think you'll find that most tech company's hiring processes are finely tuned to prevent that type of person from stepping through the door.

I find the hard to believe, especially when more than half of the college grads right now are unemployed right out the gate, regardless of major or to a lesser extent if they took humanities classes or not. You know what? Its extremely hard to get past the HR drones unless you have inside contacts, which is more of the rule than the exception

That also goes for one of the moderators here. No person should be called a child just because he dare to be critical of how a CS program is put together by an institute.

Feel free to name me, I know what I wrote

More to the point I didn't say he WAS a child I said he sounded LIKE a child because he wasn't being critical he was whining much like a child does when they don't want to do something. I stand by the assertion too.

Being critical and asking the question "why" is NOT whining. Something I learned taking a degree in languages. The OP is asking why he needs to shed out the money for something he do not plan to utilize. He is simply questioning the usefulness of the way the CS program/degree is put together. This kind of thinking is very important or we would all just be small ants walking in one direction because our professors say so.

By labelling his thread as whining you might end sending a signal that critical thinking is not allowed. This is a common rhetorical technique used in political parties and sects where people who ask "why" will be labelled as whiners(complainers, outsider etc.). I often see this trend by people with degrees and that kind of behaviour very quickly starts to look like how members of political parties or sects behaves in order to silence the critic.

The thread has many good posts by now how one can use other courses than CS in game dev, but please note that most of these posts did not come from you...

So now I ask you, what as a moderator do you get out of calling his words for whining? Do you bring any wisdom to the thread? I mean many great posters here did in fact contribute to the thread with a lot of wise words.

You are a moderator, therefore act polite and civilized. You have the power here to control the debate and therefore more than anyone else we the readers and posters rely on your great judgement. You are in fact the guaranty for us to have a great debate climate(or you should be ).

Do not misunderstand me here, I dearly appreciate many of your great inputs in many threads, but I simply just find that you some times loose your grip a little bit. Please do not take my point of view as an insult. See it more as a suggestion to how you could learn from other great contributors here in the thread