A Master's In CS or a Master's In Game Programming? 278
Rustcycle asks: "I'm attending the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, which has just announced that they are offering a Master's Degree in their Games and Media Integration (GMI) program. There is a fair amount of overlap between the GMI curriculum and the CS courses, so I'm considering a switch in degrees. If you were hiring MS grads outside the game industry for visualization work, am I worth more to you with the more specialized program or would you be more interested in me if I had more exposure? Within the gaming industry, how much does a specialized degree compel a company to hire a recent grad?"
Get the CS degree (Score:5, Informative)
As someone who's worked in games and in game related industries, I'll tell you that the 'Games' degrees are largely laughed at by those of us in the industry.
Good fundamentals are what I care about. I can teach you the domain specific knowledge you need to know, but if you don't have the fundamentals you'll never be good enough for me to bother with.
Good luck!
Re:Get the CS degree (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:Get the CS degree (Score:4, Insightful)
It's not a bad idea, but don't narrow it down so much that you end up with a graduate degree that only helps you get work in one single small, cutthroat industry.
Many universities allow matriculants to design their own course of study. Take courses and do research projects involving graphics, artificial intelligence, and distributed multi-user systems, but don't call it "Game Programming" -- call it "Interactive Multimedia Design" or something.
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Re:Get the CS degree (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Get the CS degree (Score:5, Informative)
Bachelor of Science: Computer Science
Bachelor of Science: Mathematics
Bachelor of Engineering: Electrical Engineering (computer or digital design emphasis)
They're certainly not the only degrees to get but they do stand out on a resume as someone likely to be able to handle game programming. Those "BA:Film Appreciation" resumes with "I wanna kode a gr8 game idea I had" go straight into the trash.
Also very important is experience -- any experience. For guys who have never worked on a commercial game, being able to show demos of personal or even class projects covering aspects of game programming on graphics, sound programming, networking, etc will vastly improve your hireability as a beginning game programmer (not to mention probably get you a better starting salary). Being able to describe in depth some of the techniques will get you pretty far on an interview.
Now what's interesting is that while the Game Programming degree will get you some of the experience and prossibly a cool demo, there is still a stigma that the Game Programming degree covers mainly some practical applications and doesn't cover enough theory to allow you to delve into solving new and more complex issues outside of the learned practical applications. Therefore, your best bet is to take one of the tradition degrees and if possible AS ELECTIVES take classes from the Game Programming track.
Re; Get the CS degree (Score:4, Informative)
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My school has CS in college of liberal arts & sciences and CprE in engineering, we have a lot of classes in common between the majors and there is really no difference in difficulty be
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don't underestimate Jack (Score:2)
I couldn't disagree more. I have a jack of all trades degree, Theoretical and Applied Mechanics... Do one good internship during your undergrad, and you will be able to get a good job. Once you are at the good job, you will be very valuable because you will be surrounded by specialists who don't even know how to comunicate outside of their specialty. You will be the glue that binds every
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But who wants to work in games software anyway. As a general rule in the real world - the more rewarding a job is the less you can expect to earn for it.
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That said, I think physics might become much more important as games increasingly have realistic physical simulations, instead of the silly simple dynamics (or even static models, e.g. indestructible buildings and terrain) of the past.
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After all solid body dynamics is just a subset of Newtonian physics and so is fluid dynamics.
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Really? I guess my MDPhD in Molecular Oncology is not gonna fair that well after all...
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I'm sorry, but I someone that smart would not be hanging around
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Ultimately, I don't care what your degree is, though. Convince me that you are smart and get things done, and I'll recommend we hire you.
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I assure you, most of these game programs are laughed at.
Go CS degree, BS or Msc, and you'll do fine.
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For visualization work, you'd probably be better off taking a few art or design cou
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Seriously, fuggetaboutit and get a business degree instead.
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I say stick with the CS (Score:2, Informative)
However, find a group of buddies and sit down as a team and code up your own games.
Have fun.
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But then I don't agree with that anyway, so what do I know?
Re:I say stick with the CS (Score:5, Funny)
That said - if you are going for an advanced degree, go MS/CS.
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My point being, that saying such things is all just ego stroking. It doesn't matter hwere you're programming, there's going to be a pretty substantial learning curve. Every pro
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PS: I have a CS degree and I have worked with real time systems and databases and IMO the most complex complex stored procedure is simple in comparison to fixing undocumented, low level, and buggy networking code. Mac OS 8 I
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Do Not! (Score:5, Informative)
Please.
Nope (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Nope (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah, just turn on a blacklight in a room at a Motel 6 for proof.
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I think a good rule of thumb is that if an industry is hard to "break into" avoid it. If every job has hundreds of applicants you can be sure that there will be ten that are qualified a
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What's in a game? (Score:2, Insightful)
In general terms... (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm about to graduate from a gaming school (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:I'm about to graduate from a gaming school (Score:5, Insightful)
You might be different. Maybe you're great. I've worked with one guy from Full Sail, and he's painted a bleak picture of what they let through as graduates.
Since then, I haven't had a single candidate make it past phone screens from gaming universities. Maybe you're the exception.
Education is a tool, but it's pretty much the only thing I have to go on for recent graduates.
Best of luck!
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Sorry.
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I am a Full Sail grad myself. Personally I have not been happy with my own career in the game industry (QA work mostly) but I put the blame for that directly on myself not on the school (problems in my private life more then from my education). However I know many who have had very successful careers after Full Sail.
There is a surpris
Go for a regular CS degree... (Score:5, Informative)
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And those employers then compalain that they can't find qualified candidates...
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Comparison (Score:5, Insightful)
Most people have multiple careers. Choose wisely.
If you even need to ask that... (Score:2, Insightful)
Its crazy long, hard hours for low pay. You gotta know why you're there.
Degrees in general (Score:5, Insightful)
The "game degree" path may push you through making an actual game. Or it might not. I really don't know, and I honestly don't care. Pick your classes based on what you'll learn from them, not what your diploma will say.
This assumes you want to get a job at one of the smaller more personal companies, not a code-monkey job at a behemoth company.
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Bling bling (Score:2)
That said, most CS degrees don't focus on the specific techniques used in game programming
What you need for a job in the games industry (Score:5, Interesting)
1: Good C++ engineering skills. Have this as part of your portfolio you send with a resume
2: A good understanding of algorithms in general, both single and multithreaded
3: Datastructures
4: Linear Algebra
5: If you want to be a rendering guy (which I kind of am, though more generally I'm a high performance guy), you need calculus.
6: Basic physics
7: Depending on what specifically you want to do, some 'advanced' (ie second year) physics
8: Operating systems. That is, how does the OS work, how does that impact me as a software developer.
Things that can't hurt: Familiarity with some game specific problems, such as rendering, game AI, the slightly different philosophy for some of the advanced topics like networking and distributed systems. Obviously you need to know how to program in Windows, even minimally. If you have C++ skills by the time you graduate you can easily apply those to consoles and probably mobiles.
Can you get all of those with an MSc in either CS or Game development? I suspect yes. With the game development you're probably marginally more prepared for game dev, after all this is MSc level, not BSc. Being at the MSc level means you're focusing your research interests and advanced topics on the details of some game related problems, but you can do that in a regular MSc just as well as in GD (that's what I'm doing/did, which is graphics stuff as an MSc in CS).
So which is better? The GD might give you a tiny edge over an equivalent CS person (after all you've demonstrated your interest), on the other hand, the CS MSc means you can, after working 80 hours a week for 3 months of 'crunch time' decide to screw this and work somewhere else, and be equally valuable. Also your employer knows you at least on paper are more attractive elsehwere, meaning they may be willing to do a little extra to keep you, at worst they treat you the same as every other developer they have.
Personally, I would do the MSc in CS, with a research topic/thesis on a topic that impacts game developers. If they like you, they'll give you a job, if not you still have a normal sounding MSc on paper you can use to work elsewhere. Esspecially if you're a graphics guy like me, diversify: Take medical imaging as well as game related graphics.
That's mostly what I got from a conference held in london ontario a couple of weeks ago (futureplay).
The only other useful tidbit I picked up, was a game dev studio can be picky enough to take the only the top 10% of CS grads out there. The huge desire to go into the game business means they have a large talent pool, and while right now you may feel you measure up, the last thing you want is to get your degree and find out 3 months from now that you don't.
P.S. I met some of the people setting up this programme at the conference, I may even have met you if you were there (I was the tall thin loud one), it looks like a good program though I'd prefer a MSc in CS with a research topic in game development than a MSc in game development, I don't think you're done a disservice with either.
Probably the CS degree. (Score:5, Informative)
A CS or EE degree will almost certainly serve you better throughout your life than a game/media degree, but if getting into the industry immediately is your overriding concern, a game program will help with contacts and opportunities.
Exceptional merit will eventually be noticed (perhaps not as quickly as you would like, though), and a degree of any sort is not required if you can conclusively demonstrate that you will contribute great value to a company. However, many entry level positions are filled based on people's opinions about potential, and honest assessments from faculty that work with lots of students does carry some weight.
The best advice is "be amazing", but "diligent and experienced" counts for quite a bit.
John Carmack
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Get the CS Masters and Forget the Gaming Degree (Score:2, Informative)
Gaming Degrees is where most online degrees were 5 or 10 years ago -- they're not taken to seriously in industry and they somewhat limit your options. Looking at the syllabus and the school, it appears to be a new direction for a decent third tier E-school. However, you're going to have a difficult time moving into another industry beyond general tech support -- simply b/c some HR bean counter isn't going to know WTF your degree with mean.
If you decide to leave Gaming and go into other forms of IT, that
Get a job! (Score:2, Insightful)
It probably helps a bit (Score:3, Interesting)
If your dead focused on going into games, then getting the GMI degree is probably a better bet. But if you want to keep your options open, go for the CS degree.
The primary difference would be that with the GMI degree, you will end up taking courses that are very important to Game development at the expense of some other skills. (ie: I would guess that the GMI degree will get you courses on Matrix and Vector math, and the particulars of pixel shaders, instead of things like compiler theory and systems programming).
The trade off is that there really aren't a whole lot of jobs out there that require the particular combination of 3d Math and graphics knowledge that game development requires. The graphics and animation stuff will come in handy if you decide to try your hand at making special effects software, but knowing how to transform a point from local space to screen space wont help you get a job doing Linux programming for a telecom company.
On top of that, the games industry is just not as mature an industry as other programming jobs. Things like the ea_spouse incident with EA's overtime practices are one aspect. And the industry as a whole needs to get a much better grip on the project management side of things. Things have been improving, but there is still a long way to go.
Anyway, if you just want to be a programmer, the CS degree is the way to go. But if you want to be a game programmer specifically, go for the GMI degree.
END COMMUNICATION
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Masters in CS (Score:3, Insightful)
If you have a Masters in CS and have a keen interest in writing games you should be able to create proficient demos showing your technical and artistic skills for creating games.
If you get a Masters in Game Programming you will have a harder time convincing someone outside the Game industry that your skills are appropriate to their industry.
Assuming you absolutely only intend to go in to Game Programming related jobs then either are probably equally good choices, but if there is any chance at all you'll take a job outside of the game industry then there isn't really a choice.
Game Degrees are worthless (Score:2, Insightful)
Plumbing.... (Score:3, Insightful)
CS degree sounds much smarter (Score:2)
Get over the vocational degre mentality (Score:3, Insightful)
And, please, get over this "degrees are for jobs" mentality. It destroys your education. With a good CS degree you may become a researcher someday and win a place in next century's schoolbooks. With a Games degree you will just get hired to work 15 hours per day with unpaid overtime for an incompetent boss who spends his time with call girls, and you will get fired when you get sick from overwork. Learn to lead your life and understand that a Master's degree is for masters, not for slaves (employees). Become a capitalist, found your own startup and focus on becoming a free man.
A games degree wouldn't make me hire you. Work experience wouldn't, either. What matters to me is your ability and willingness to learn, your educational and academic/research background (but it's also ok for me if you managed to learn real science on your own without going to university), your general intelligence, and your leisure activities. If you watch TV in your free time, you aren't gonna being hired by me, but if you read books (I assume you already have a Safari subscription, right?), hack open-source code or write good stuff at Wikipedia, or if you participate in free community wifi networks, then this matters much more to me than work experience (and actually also more than academic background). I want to hire hackers, not employees. I do not want people who like being led, I want to get other self-starters and leaders collaborating with me (with profit sharing of course). I would prefer a hacker with 1 year's verifiable volunteering experience in Apache or FreeBSD kernel to an employee (read: slave) with 10 years of experience in a Dilbertian company (some exceptions allowed for serious innovative companies that pay for their staff's training and perform real R&D). I do not want slaves working for me, and people who destroy their education by getting vocational degrees have a slave mentality (and they are unproductive: Trained slaves aren't motivated and don't get things done). Get over this "work experience" thing: At companies you only learn some random stuff here and there to do your work as your boss wants, at universities you learn the real stuff (often without much focus on practice but it is assumed that you are smart and therefore capable of practising on your own after you learn the theory), and in the free communities (open source, open content, community wifi) you learn how to be a good citizen in addition to polishing your practical skills.
Get them both if you can afford it.. (Score:3, Interesting)
Nah. The games program at Colorado is in beta (Score:4, Informative)
The original article has a link to the "games program" at Colorado State. This is just a proposal within the school, not an established program. In other words, it's a pre-release beta. In fact, it's not really a "games program", it's really just a list of existing courses being repackaged as a "games program"
There are some well-respected games programming degrees [digipen.edu] but this isn't one of them. Maybe in a few years.
One thing I can say, as the person who first made ragdoll physics work - if you want to work at that level, you need math. Far more math than most CS majors. Not just the ordinary math for graphics, but the math for dynamics, control, and modern AI as well. Nonlinear differential equations. Computational geometry. Linear and nonlinear control theory. Classifier systems. Bayesian statistics.
On the programming side, you need to understand things down to the bit level. You're liable to have to do something awful like make a computational algorithm work on a GPU that's all wrong for the job.
If you're not good at heavy math, you'll be shunted off into maintaining the level editor or similar low-level programming work. For which the hours and pay are both lousy. Too many low-level programmers want to get into the game industry.
It also helps to have some artistic talent. You won't be doing the real artwork, but you need to be able to sketch, just to talk intelligently to the artists.
What graduate degree? (Score:2)
Looking at graduate programs they all leave me a little cold. I could do an MBA, but I'm not that much of an asshole. I did look at an MLS, and my IS degree kind of dovetails with that. But to be honest, if the Democrats reduce the interest rates I may well go back and get my undergrad EE.
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That's interesting, coz I'm actually considering getting a masters/PhD in information science [cornell.edu] myself. Not to diss "regular" CS degrees, I have a lot of respect for someone who shines through some of these programs, but I'm looking at doing some academic work using my technical skills, rather than on my technical skills. Meaning, comp sci as a means for solving something, and not necessarily as an end in itself.
I'm curious about hearing about your experience with an information science degree, and why you'd
This is really a no-brainer (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm not in the game industry, but if a resume ever came across my desk with a "game degree" on it, I'd almost reflexively trash it. True or not, the impression is that such "degrees" are offered by profit-motivated, crank 'em out, trade school companies. If I were in the game industry, the profile I'd be looking for is somebody with a CS degree (not necessarily a master's) who has the additional background is applicable to games. (vector algebra? assembly optimization? I don't know--you'll have to do some research to find out what skills are really required for game development, and then select coursework in your MSCS that will prepare you for it). If the candidate didn't have game development experience, I'd be looking for a freeware or OSS game that he'd written. It wouldn't have to be popular, it would just have to demonstrate skill. IMHO, when looking for people to do any type of programming, there is no better indicator of future success than the fact that they are already practicing the art. That seems rather obvious, and yet so many people don't even consider it. They just look at your degree; so get a MSCS. Don't even think about a game degree. Run really fast in the other direction. Did I mention not to get a game degree? OK, good.
What about no degree? (Score:2)
If I were to, in my vast amounts of free time, create a nice-looking portfolio, demo, or open source game, would my resume also be reflexively tossed in the trash?
I guess what I'm asking is, should I go back to school, or should I keep working and hacking around in my spare time? (I have more spare time now than I did in school.)
I'm sure everyone's said but... (Score:2)
There's three main benefits of CS degrees.
A. You have better classes, Development life cycles is VERY underrated by undergrads. Design documentation is underrated at all, you'll hate these classes, people in any business love it because it teaches you a lot. They love the fact that you went through the harder courses, and learned more than just game design. Think game design is just p
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WTF? (Score:2)
CS is usable in far more places, it is far more respected in the industry(important for career), and it is a deeper understanding of what happens in the box.
OTOH, maybe you want to be working 100 hours a week, for little pay, and crappy workking conditions, go for the Game programming 'Degree'.
Missed the point (Score:2)
I work with Scientists who specialize in visualization. Thus far, I haven't seen a rea
As a matter of fact (Score:2)
My many many years in the corporate grind have taught me that I would rather my children start there own business then go to college.
If they where dedicated to what they were doing I would gladly support them. I would suggest the go to college part time, because there is a lot of great contacts.
Not that college is bad, but if you know what you want to do, think about the pros and cons.
If they weren't sure what they wanted to do, then I would want them to col
Game Development: Tiny Market (Score:2)
Choose the more conservative option (Score:2)
It would be much better to take the more conservative degree path. This isn't the 1950's anymore, people change careers all the time. Unless you're the extremely rare exception, you're not going to be a professional game developer all your life. You could end up writing realtime embedded software for a space probe. So get the more general degree
Read Everything, Then Trust Your Feelings, Luke .. (Score:2)
Good insights on both "sides", but ultimately, I think you need to decide where your passions are, while also remembering that your degree is only one factor (sometimes a big one) in determining your career options. It's a factor that diminishes with each career move you'll make, too.
I'm definitely old school in my philosophy: follow the path that gives you the most depth in the tools you think you really want
What if you end up hating game programming? (Score:2)
What if you end up hating game programming? What if the very atmosphere makes you crazy? What if you want to try something different? Given that "game programming degrees" are given questionable respect by quite a few people (see 90% of above posts) *IN* the industry, what kind of clout, let alone background, do you think it will give you in making a non-game career change? There's a lot of long hours a
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CS degree with a math minor (Score:2)
I don't know why everyone is so afraid of the math - the majority of it is linear algebra, and some calc. helps to figure out the physics. Geometry helps, but isn't essential. This is not terribly advanced math, and can easily be completed in the course of a math minor.
Furthermore, doing a math minor will probably help you with your graduate coursework: I'm in the first year of a Ph. D. program in CS right now and I have far more mathematical experience than my classmates, some of whom have been in the pr
Do a double major... (Score:2)
Be an electrician... (Score:2)
THEN sellout for millions.
Step one: Get out of computing (Score:2)
Not today, not tomorrow, and maybe not for a decade or even two, but I honestly think that computing as a career will drop to the same level as janitor.
First, computers will become more-or-less self-administering, eliminating one sector.
Later, code will become too complex to write for people (already people can only write small subsets of a program), so computers will take over generating code. Exuent programmers.
Creative expression requires u
Study Law or Accountancy (Score:4, Interesting)
Clean Up On Aisle Seven (Score:2)
CS degree is outdated (Score:2)
UCCS (Score:2)
Also, go with the CS degree. A gaming degree pigeonholes you and won't serve you well if you want to work outside the industry. The practical difference between the two degrees probably won't be more than a few classes, some of which I'm sure you can take as electives anyway.
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Too often people think working on video games is all fun. It stopped being fun for me after the first six weeks and I worked in the industry for six years. I'm now a help desk specialist working 40 hours a week but making the same amount of money when I was working 80 hours per week testing video games. It's nice to have a life.
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discrete math (Score:4, Funny)
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I work in aviation and I can't speak for the games industry, but you do seem a bit overqualified to be working on that kind of stuff.
To pick a silly example: go to a company which digs ditches for a living and ask them to be involved in your masters thesis on ditches.
Much of the software industry is as low tech
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If you want a job in a coffee shop, by all means, learn java.
> ruby jobs --> 297
There aren't that many open positions as jewelers out there.
But if you want to be a programmer, learn programming fundamentals. Don't just learn a language. It will soon be replaced by the next buzz word language sold to the pointy heads anyway.
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How about Google.