My boys are entering college and will start with the community college for general ed stuff for now, but we are looking into undergraduate schools to transfer into eventually. I was wondering if anyone knew or had experience with a particular university that would be good to look at. One’s interest is in the programming side of game dev and the other is in the design side. Thanks in advanced.
They cost a fortune and won’t guarantee anyone a job… Specially the “Game Design” courses.
Programmers can find work relatively easier.
If it’s really a must, I’ve heard “Full Sail” is a good bet.
There’s not a ton of good options so it depends if they’re OK having to travel further away, there’s a list I found here:The 50 Best Video Game Design Colleges 2021 - Successful Student
There’s going to be more options for programming because that applies to more than just game development.
On the art side there’s not as many options, classes aren’t long enough to teach you what you need to know so there’s a fair amount of work that you need to do yourself outside of class to get your skills high enough.
If the college doesn’t have a good history of job placement then it may not be worth it to spend the money on a degree, so there’s the option of learning on your own with online materials and workshops where it’s much cheaper. However, it can be difficult to keep yourself learning that way so some find that being at college can keep you on track even if you’re learning the most by yourself practicing outside of class.
For the art side at least, having a good portfolio is the most important thing, a degree isn’t worth that much. The biggest benefit of going to a college is that they may have connections that can make it easier to find a job.
For both of them, I’d look for a specific job that they would want to do and put all learning towards that goal (for example, character artist). And have the goal of having a portfolio ready so that they can start applying for jobs before they graduate.
Going to school for this is a huge waste of time and money. Really ask yourself WHAT the point of going actually is? to learn? I mean you can do that for free. Going to school does not equate to actual experience so no one is going to hire you on in any decent position starting out so if the idea is simply to land a job with a studio you are better off not wasting the time and money.
The only time I could ever suggest a person pay money to learn anything is if the job they want actually requires the piece of paper at the end. Learning is free and only certain career paths require the time and expense involved in going to school.