Hi Forum Users,
I am currently a junior student in high school looking to major in game design once I graduate. I am looking for a 4 year university that have dedicated programs to game design and programming. I have looked at a couple of Universities, Digipen (Redmond, Washington) is one I am definitely interested in. it is reasonably priced for me and is praised as one of the best universities the 2 major issues are that it is far away and they require students to take pre-calculus before attending. I cannot make anymore changes to my senior year schedule so I will not be able to take it. I kinda want suggestions and recommendations for good universities or if anyone goes to Digipen here let me know how they usually handle that situation.
Just pick up an extra calc class in first year if you need it. Decent unis offer bridging options if your high school program isn’t adequate.
If your grades are good enough, you can simply persuade the uni to ignore the missing prerequisite, and catch up by working hard.
Note that unis vary dramatically between countries. This advice is valid where I live, but might not be universally applicable.
Game Design degrees are a scam and it is largely not recognized by reputable companies.
Do a degree in Computer Science from a state university. Be careful there are also fake CS degrees that are scams like ones from Hertfordshire in the UK.
It is possible that you could get a good game design degree but it would have to be from a VERY reputable University like say Oxford or Harvard etc.
Scam is probably too strong a word. There are some game school graduates that have gone on to do well locally.
But some things to consider
- Game degrees are fairly hard to transfer to other fields
- There are significantly more game degree grads then their are grad positions
- A large portion of the game industry does not have game degrees, so having a degree might not be soon as a good thing compared to spending the same time building games in your garage. Of course you can do both
- Game schools are all fairly new, meaning the techniques and curriculum isn’t especially mature
- Game schools are typically non government funded, making them very expensive compared to more traditional degrees
Don’t let any of this stop you. But be fully aware of what you are getting into.
^ Yeah what I have noticed in recent years is that Universities will come up with absolutely anything to make money, Game Design degrees are part of their marketing and much of it is largely useless topics in order to avoid the mathematics and physics of a proper Computer Science degree.
So people do these degrees and then apply for jobs in the game industry that typically needs strong math skills and they get turned down.
Funny enough reputable universities even offer “gender and peace studies” degrees now.
Chris DeLeon and Katie Chironis had a really good, critical discussion of game design schools in this gamkedo podcast. If you plan to pursue higher education in preparation for the game development field, it’s well worth your time to listen. Briefly, there are a few worthwhile programs (such as SMU’s Guildhall), but most provide a poor return on investment. They lay out good criteria for evaluating schools, and suggest alternatives such as Computer Science depending on your particular interests.
The podcast is also full of useful tidbits to be aware of – like the fact that vocational schools like Digipen don’t carry the same accreditation as traditional universities. So if you transfer schools or decide to pursue a master’s or PhD, your “credits” probably won’t transfer, and you’ll have to start from scratch. This isn’t specifically to knock Digipen, just something to be aware of.