Hi, do you guys know Full Sail gaming school? is it a VERY good school to go to to study game development? i mean just go to their website and read their stuffs about their graduates gettings lots of credits and easily employed because they were graduates of fullsail i mean is that school really that great? thanks guys for your opinions

It''s a 2 year vocational school. I''d think real long and real hard about going there as opposed to a ''real'' 4-yr college.

I have a friend that attends Full Sail.
He has been there for about 6 months now and is about a third that way through the Game Development program. So far he loves it.

It is just my opinion, but I feel that a ‘real’ four year college degree doesn’t compare to the proof of experience. I, as a team leader in a very large company in charge of hiring developers, can say that one of the last things I ‘care’ about is a degree. Although I am not currently in the game arena, however at the time I was, the same held true there also.

What does this have to do with Full Sail?
Well one of the graduation requirements there is to create a complete game, from scratch. Including completing a sales package, complete design docs, and of course a working game.

Going back to what I had mentioned earlier, that I feel that experience outweighs a degree, Full Sail helps provide that tangible piece of experience.

Qualifier
This is just my opinion, so take it as that and only that. I also would like to say that I don’t want to discredit a formal education (I have one also, although in a field totally not related to my career), and anyone with enough motivation (in school or not) can produce ‘tangible pieces’ of experience.

The advantage of a 4 yr school is breadth. With a bachelor''s degree, you will be qualified for a wide variety of positions inside and outside of the game development industry. Most students will have generated several ''tangible'' projects by the time they graduate, particularly if they are required to complete a thesis or senior project.

By attending Full Sail you will have a harder time transitioning out of the game dev industry if you ever decide you could use a change. You might have a small leg up in game dev, but you will have a large leg _down_ at, say, Autodesk or microsoft.

ei hello, thanks for all your opinions but actually i'm having my 4 year degree course right now and i have no intention to stop it and my real point here is, because of the VERY HIGH tuition fees of FullSail, is it really worth it to enroll at that school(I mean yeah, my dream is to be able to join a game development company someday)? it's just that because, epecially me, i'm gonna go a long way just to get their, i live right now in Philippines and i think it's gonna be very hard for me to get their and actually study their(like adjusting etc.,) i mean with the things that i'm gonna undergo will it be worth it? thanks guys for all your advices

Edited by - mickey on November 9, 2001 12:47:04 PM

I think in your situation, you may be better served not attending Full Sail.

Your present schooling should give you enough practical experience. With enough motivation you should be able to put a demo together to show your determination. I would think that should be enough of a start to get you in the door.

Also AP brought up a good point I overlooked, Full Sail will equip you for the ‘Game’ industry. If you ever tire, or find you just don’t really care for the game industry, you will have a much easier time transitioning to the ‘Business Application’ industry later. Not that this point really applies to your case specifically though.