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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
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
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.
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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 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