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Life At Full Sail - The Gamer School
WICKED writes "Full Sail: The School for Gamers? Are you the type of person that dreams about getting into the gaming industry, but doesn't know where to start from? Join myself and our guest writer Brett, as we take a closer look at Full Sail's Computer Animation and Game Design programs, and bring you the highs and lows throughout our 14 months." Game programming and design education have been in the news a lot more lately, and it's interesting to see a hands-on perspective of what these programs have to offer.
Ever since TechTV mentioned them, the server has crashed. These guys offered movies on game design for free.
I'm a hamker. Hams, hackers, same ethos, different medium. == 73 de KB0STG
Are you the type of person that dreams about getting into the gaming industry, but doesn't know where to start from?
I usually tend to start on the other side of that trailing preposition, there, Coach Z.
How are you going to keep them down on the farm once they've seen Karl Hungus?
I live next to the school. Almost everyone I've ever met is a pretenious fuckoff; it's like the new Hollywood. Everyone here has big dreams to make the next student film about jerking off or the next Michael Bay movie. It's little more than a trade school where they teach you how to make cheap HK knockoff games. Nothing original is coming out of this school.
I took the tour one Sunday since they were offering free lunch and I was bored. Pretty tight setup. The VR lab was cool and they had some very sweet computer labs. Some dude who used to work for id gave the intro to the computer animation program, which made me realize was a dork I was for recognizing his name. At least it wasn't until halfway through his spiel and I soon forgot it, so I don't feel too bad. But they had all sorts of machines there, including a room full of SGI workstations for the animation classes.
The video and audio editing hardware they have... holy shit. They have got some serious hardware on that end. If you've ever considered video or audio editing, you really need to drag your ass down here to Orlando and play with those toys. The mobile stage setup was fairly sweet; a few semis that unload a big outdoor tented stage setup.
All in all, it looked like you really got your money's worth, which is good because it does cost a pretty penny, hence my attending a public university instead. But if your parents don't know what the fuck to do with all of that money sitting around, have them send you down here. Just don't forget the AC, because the weather sucks.
Shawn
Because you gotta bitch
But what happens when you decide you can't cut it in the gaming world? You are left with a trade school education that taught you how to press buttons in a certain order to accomplish a specific task.
In the end design, art and programming aren't determined by how much you paid to learn it but by your talent, which if it isn't natural comes from hard work. You can get that along with a real degree at most public universities if you are serious enough.
For those interested in learning about the art producation side of gaming this site has some very nice free videos that train in the majority of tools that modelers/artists use.
Full Sail? A gaming school? I find that extremely hard to believe. Everything about Full Sail can be summed up like this: The school has everything to make you want to go, but nothing to make you want to stay.
...but from everyone I've heard that attended there or had friends that did say job placement rate sucks, only dedicated (as in you teach yourself with their equipment and make your own homework) students learn anything. Before I leave on a really down note, though, Full Sail is good for a certain type of person. The people who already know what they're doing, people looking to find others to start a company, or people looking to play with expensive equipment.
They're very slick, stylish looking. They came to my high school with a fancy tour bus where we could play rad video games. They had a guy come to our tv production class to tell us how great Full Sail was which I swear up until that point I had never met any of those cheesy tv infomercial guys before.
-Rabbit
he was pretty useless. They taught him how to use all the nice gear, but thats about it. Well, he had no talent, it sounds like 99% of the people there with him were the same way. Smoking weed everyday, learning f*k all, having nothing to show for it when its all over. Game programming is just not something you go to school for. I got an entry level job at a big game company, worked my way up fast by showing the ability to learn quickly. 2 years later I was a senior programmer at another company. No degrees, no certificates, no fancy overpriced schooling. Chances are after going to a school that focuses on game design, you will be sick of games by the time you are finished.
TallGreen CMS hosting
Who the hell moderated this as a Troll? It's absolutely true.
After browsing their site I have seen tons of "your life will be cool when you graduate"-isms, boasts, and other such nonsense. And yet I have yet to see the word "accredited". Fuck that. My life is far too valuable to gamble on something that sounds cool.
What I have heard about this school, is that they have really high job-placement rates for the computer arts (like animation, modeling, music), but pretty lousy placement for programmers. So, if you're looking to be a programmer, don't let them fool you with misleading figures about job-placement.
& I wish I knew the password to your heart . . . &
One of my friends from high school raved about this place. Had things all set up with his student loans and everything. He's telling me about all the crazy equipment they have. How people from iD Software, ILM work there. He was always into 3D modeling/animation in HS, and he was pretty damn good too...
A year later I see him back home and ask him what the hell he is doing here... Turns out getting a job after graduating from here is null. And if you don't get a job you are stuck with a Trade School degree(as pointed out in an earlier post) and nowhere to go.
tuition elsewhere. And maybe get a job.
*shrug* If you're good enough to stand out in a setting like that to get hired you probably didn't need to go there in the first place.
"Engineers do the work of man, Physicists do the work of God"
Full Sail hasn't impressed me at all, for reasons amply covered by the other posters. But if you're looking to go to school for game design/programming/art-stuff then you should do yourself a favour and check out DigiPen. Their name sucks monkey rocks, and they aren't as flashy as places like Full Sail, but they're an accredited university with very solid 2 and 4 year degree programs. They also seem to have a good deal of respect in the industry, and a pretty good placement rate to boot.
Behold the Power of Cheese!
I couldn't even view their site: I surf with JunkBuster masking my browser type, and they wouldn't even let me in the front door.
If they're so incompetent that they can't design a decent, standards compatible web site, then what will they be able to teach about games?
I'm not saying it will happen to everyone who goes there, but I think it was a big waste of time and money for my brother.
All the creatures will die, And all the things will be broken. That's the law of samurai. (Jubai, 1605)
I heard about full sail 2 years ago and visited the campus. The studio where they teach games is very impressive. 3 huge screens on the wall where the Instructer teaches while everybody sits at their computers that is on a semi-super computer network. However, there program seemed to be more of a crash course in game design. Supposedly, you get your A.A in just over a year. Thats with all the programming and math courses. I don't know about you but teaching people with no experience how to program 3D worlds in one year seems a bit much.
-Dipster
I donâ(TM)t know much about Full Sail, but I liked my experience at Digipen. I have a college degree and a Digipen degree. The college degree has helped make me well-rounded individual (I can mix chemicals and talk about baroque music) but the Digipen degree challenged me as a programmer like nothing in any other college level class. If I was hiring I would look at any Digipen graduate just for their programming experience alone. They are not just reading âoeLearn DirectX-9 in 24 hoursâ they are taking real classes on programming and math. They also know how to work with a team and how to deal with insane deadlines (much more so then college).
Spell cheek you've failed me four the last thyme!
... but: ... only dedicated (as in you teach yourself with their equipment and make your own homework) students learn anything ...
I hate to tell you this. That's how it is in real life.
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
Yeah, great toys, but a 2-year tech degree, no real knowledge or skills, and the 'guarunteed job placement' they give you is a minimum-wage spot working backstage at Disney (Full Sail's partner).
I have not yet met one audio person from Full Sail who knew what they were doing - and me with 13 years in the biz. Their graduates know how to operate ProTools, but that's about it - not why to operate ProTools... they know how to put a compressor on a track, but not what settings to put into it, or why they need those settings in the first place. No trained ears, no knowledge of what the compressor is really doing to the signal, and no knowledge whatsoever of analog processing - which the digital stuff is modelling.
-T
I am lovnign it. It is deffintally a challange, my class started with about 30 people and we are now down to about 20, we picked up other students who failed classes along the way. I am currently in my 6th month of classes, i am in my 3rd programming class, called Fundementals of Windows Programming. The first programming class, C++, duh, is totally designed to weed out the uncommitted and people who are not ment to be programmers. We do have deadlness for little programs that we have to do. As for the school having a poor employment rate from what i hear it is about 75%, and thats all so considering that by the time the class is ready to graduate there are on average about 12 students left out of the average of 30 students who start. so that is a pretty good employment rate. As for there reputation they have a good one. One of my friends is guarenteed a job, if he went to Full Sail and passed the company he is goin to work for is MonkeyStone. Thats just my 2 cents
Is this a new fad? Can you really make big bucks making games? Well weâ(TM)re not really sure, but to get anywhere in any industry you need to know your stuff.
So to get anywhere, you need to know your stuff. Do you think you can learn that from people who are not really sure if you can make money in that career path or not? Exactly how much do they know about the industry? Perhaps they should learn their "stuff" before offering courses.
If you're not willing to toil for years as the coffee bitch of the industry, scraping and clawing against hundreds of others with your exact credentials for some vague semblance of recognition...don't bother. Seriously. The school starts up a new class every month that averages about 30 people per degree program. That's 360 new people per year who know the same things you do. Who all see the same job openings you do.
I've kept in contact with a few of my friends from my course. One of them now does characters for Disney; you may have seen him in the televised parade this last Christmas. He was one of the Goofy players, if I recall. One flat out gave up and joined the Marines. Another had a recent interview at EA and was told word for word "If you actually want a job, lie. Don't say you went to Full Sail. Everyone knows it's a cookie cutter school." Enlightened by that, she's currently preparing to go back to school this summer to learn how to groom animals. I myself had an interview with a small company here in the DC area that does video editing and military simulations for the government. The interviewer told me (as nicely as possible) that their company had already received several dozen applications from other Full Sail grads, many with more current knowledge than I possessed. Needless to say, I didn't get the job.
A few good things did come out of it all. I wound up with my "war buddies" (never hurts to have references). I obtained an intimate knowledge of how to jaywalk on University Blvd. (FYI, the key is to cross halfway between the lights, just after the big wave passes). I learned how to function at any period of the day, with or without sleep. AND thanks to some of my more unscrupulous classmates, I've got a stack of burned software that would make any warez kiddie plotz. Not that I ever use any of it, of course. I'm a good boy.
If you're still quite adamant about going, all I can say is this: use the school as a stepping stone in your education. Don't come out of it expecting to have Pixar duking it out with Dreamworks over who gets to hire you. Go on to higher education, such as an architecture major at an actual college. Otherwise you'll be like me, who is currently praying to every available diety that the local library system will hire me for an aide position.
Unless, of course, you've got fourty grand burning a hole in your pocket and you've just GOTTA know how Bullet Time works. Then go for it.
Let me set the record straight on all the Full Sail sucks comments. The reason everyone's roommate, or friends friend friend says full sail sucks is usually because they couldn't take it.
Full Sail is a no-nonsense school. If you can't keep up with the pace, then you're either really dumb, or you're unwilling to learn. Unlike most colleges, no one here is going to put up with people who aren't willing to learn.
I'm a student there in the game design program a couple months away from starting my final project. I have nothing but great things to say about the school. The instructors are awesome, some of them you may even know. Dave Arneson, co-creator of dungeons and dragons teaches rules of the game, and Richard Wright, author of the OpenGL SuperBible, teaches (you guessed it) OpenGL.
If you really want to be in the gaming industry, and you're willing to put forth the effort required then you NEED to seriously consider this school. I'm in class 40 hours a week (no exaggeration), and outside of class I choose to work an extra 20-40 hours every week. Why? Because I absolutely love what I'm doing and if you feel the same way, then get the hell down here.