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I don't remember software engineering degrees at CMU when I was there. It was the beginning of the B.S. in computer science though. Until then they only had a doctoral program. People who wanted to go into CS took Math or Physics with a specialization in CS. They developed an undergraduate CS degree when they realized that the CS majors were taking over the other programs.

Incidentally, if people are interested in getting undergraduate degrees in software engineering, Full Sail has a very good program. I think it's at http://www.fullsail.edu/degree...

Graduates come out with a particularly strong background in unit testing, something that my CS training skipped entirely. This is odd since unit testing may well be the most important aspect of programming. Efficiently getting an incorrect answer is less useful than a slow but correct answer in almost all circumstances.

If you have any interest in games then I would suggest Full Sail University in Orlando, FL. If you can afford it without working a job at the same time. The reason is, it is a 40Hr per week school. The Bachelor degree takes 21 months and it is almost exclusively CS. There are a couple of English type classes but they relate directly back to game design and development. And, because it is an accelerated program they are only one month long. So, in my opinion, this is the fastest way to a CS degree. http://www.fullsail.edu/degrees/game-development-bachelors Here is a link to the program.

I teach for a BS degree in Web Design & Development. If you look at our courses, you'll see that we have a number that are very Open Source friendly. Sure, we partner with Adobe and Apple and have a huge focus on the Adobe CS apps (Flash, Photoshop/Illustrator, Flex, ColdFusion), but we also have entire courses on PHP, jQuery, mySQL, and Red5. And those are just the apps for which we spend an entire course. We also work in Git, CouchDB, Audacity, Eclipse, and many more common OSS apps and platforms. It's an open secret that we're working to launch a BS degree in Mobile Development that will have a very large Android curriculum.

Higher education doesn't have to be all boring theory and no practical application. Anyone who tells you that the university system can't keep up with rapidly-changing technology is sorely misinformed.

Twenty years from now, 90% of the technologies you mentioned will be just memories. A traditional BS from a traditional university is useful for pretty much an entire lifetime. Your BS program sounds a lot like a trade school program repackaged so that students can get financial aid. Don't get me wrong, I think these skills are useful -- I spent 10 years of my professional life teaching IT certification courses. However, I never considered what I did to be an alternative to a degree.

I would much rather see a university have trouble keeping up with technology than see one lose all sense of perspective chasing shiny things.

I teach for a BS degree in Web Design & Development. If you look at our courses, you'll see that we have a number that are very Open Source friendly. Sure, we partner with Adobe and Apple and have a huge focus on the Adobe CS apps (Flash, Photoshop/Illustrator, Flex, ColdFusion), but we also have entire courses on PHP, jQuery, mySQL, and Red5. And those are just the apps for which we spend an entire course. We also work in Git, CouchDB, Audacity, Eclipse, and many more common OSS apps and platforms. It's an open secret that we're working to launch a BS degree in Mobile Development that will have a very large Android curriculum.

Higher education doesn't have to be all boring theory and no practical application. Anyone who tells you that the university system can't keep up with rapidly-changing technology is sorely misinformed.

Full Sail in Orlando has an MS program in game design and bachelor's programs in game art and game development. (Game art is also available online.) And yeah, it's like you say--a lot of people go there thinking "games are fun to play, I bet they're fun to make" and yeah, the math and physics and programming (C or C++, I forget which) kicks a lot of their asses. (Posting as AC because I'm affiliated with them.) Around half don't make it through.

Here in florida we have a college, Full Sail, it specializez in entertainment industry stuff. Such as: game design and devolpment. It's good to know we have a place that specializes in making the people that are required if world of gaming is to be continued.

Fullsail is probably a better option than DigiPen.

DigiPen only accept US citizens (the bastards), and only offer 2 courses. Fullsail, on the other hand, accepts anyone and have a whole range of new media programs on offer.