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Champlain College Offers Degree in Computer Game Design
sp00 writes "Computer-game-loving teens and industry professionals take note: a new Electronic Game and Interactive Development degree at Champlain College in Vermont has been unveiled. The career-oriented college will offer a bachelor's degree in this field starting in the fall, and it's the first degree of its kind in the region." While academic programs for game development aren't new, they're still far from being a standard course offering. It's cool to see that they're catching on.
I'm not a game designer nor do I work for one... I wonder how the degree will be accepted by design houses? This could easily be looked at as "Oh, you don't have any REAL experiance... just this academic stuff".
Seriously, while gaming can teach serious algorithms and such, it is specific enough to be harmful to all the wannabes who graduate and find that game companies have already been saturated by their classmates. Not only that, game companies are relatively rare and in relatively few cities. There just isn't that much flexibility, and the popular notion that everyone should uproot their families and move to where the money is is naive, IMO. If I grew up in Kentucky or Maine or whatever, why should I want to move to San Jose or Houston? I've heard that game companies don't pay well (supply and demand), so those plane tickets back to mama aren't going to be cheap.
Honestly, I think Game Design degree prospects would probably be better of going into Nursing or Accounting (established relatively well-paying always-in-demand professions in every city on the planet).
Vote in November. You won't regret it.
For those looking for other programs, the Art Institute offers a Bachelor of Science in Game Art & Design. Full Sail, in Florida, also offers a BS program.
"Some things have to be believed to be seen." - Ralph Hodgson
Why weren't there BSs in game design offered 4 years ago when I was looking to get into college, now I'm looking to get out. I can probably get a masters in game design if I want though.
But the timing is more significant than my personal situation. What this means is that the people who are going to be the game makers of tommorow are people who were born in 86-87-88. I'm a senior in college and the NES was my childhood. Some of the freshman who are just 3-4 years younger has the Playstation be their childhood! A lot of them barely remember the 16 bit days. It boggles my mind.
Anyway this is significant because the kind of people who grew up with Playstation are going to design Playstation style games. This means more shitty games to come out in the future. Nintendo will save us hopefully.
The GeekNights podcast is going strong. Listen!
"Yes, now you too can earn a worthless degree in a narrow field working countless hours getting no sleep. For your first job you say? NO! That's just for your demo reel!"
These degrees are for people to have no motivation to learn on their own time, which by the way is something every game campany looks for.
You want to be an artist? Get an art degree. Programmer? Comp Sci. Designer? English, Business, or Management are good fields.
Don't be a fool, GET YOUR DAMN SCHOOL!
-B
...is that they sort of leaked the information about this in mid-April, when the college selection process is supposed to be nearly done. As a result, we're thrown into another round of decision turmoil, with a deposit at one university and an acceptance at Champlain.
It sounds as if Champlain is working with industry on this program, and will certainly do all they can to help their first graduating classes get placed. But aren't game jobs pretty much game-to-game, like the Star Trek: Elite Force 2 folks who got laid off at Raven right after the game went gold?
How generally versatile will a game design degree be, anyway. I suspect careful choice of electives will be the key.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
My school has offered this for years. Not to mention schools like Full Sail and DigiPen (although those schools are widely regarded as a joke - my school is a full four-year, accredited college). My roommate is in that major right now, in fact (I think they're calling it "Digital Arts Engineering" at the moment).
We're in northern California, so there's no lack of companies around us. I'm majoring in 3D modeling/animation, and I hope to intern for Pixar next summer - it's less than an hour away.
I belong to the ______ generation.
Too bad it seems that nobody knows how to teach it.
It's really sad to see what universities and colleges are turning into. I was a major in Contemporary Music at a college in Illinois for two years. It didn't take long to find out that the only reason that they have the degree is:
a) Get people into college that don't want to be in college because it's no fun
b) Get people away from other colleges w/o fun degrees
The problem is... the effects of the previous are:
a) People who shouldn't be in college (especially a private one where I was) show up, don't want to be in class and pretty much make a separate class for themselves (the people who just don't care or want to be here)
b) Nobody likes them because they're just there for fun
c) They pay a lot for something that is completely worthless (except for the Liberal Arts stuff that they weren't paying attention to)
d) There is no merit to the degree and the school is knowingly setting 99% of the students up for failure.
e) They tend to become popular (like sports) and take away from the truly academic leanings of the school.
f) The best and most creative get the jobs, period. It's not like teaching, where you have to have a degree to do it.
This computer games thing is exactly the same situation. People will come to it to... Gasp... have fun... not learn... not become part of the institution... they then hurt the institution overall by lowering expectations, education levels, success rates after school, etc... but they are a big draw.
I say... leave these things to trade schools and bring back to colleges and universities the things that make our schools the best in the world... EDUCATION!
Certainly every man at his best state is but vapor
I would have expected this from Burlington College before Champlain College, but regardless I love my state. Go Green Mountains!
Truth, Just Us, And Hatred For All Mankind!
I guess what I'm getting at is those are established fields offered in most universities, game design is not. However things in those fields are applicable to game design.
And on another note, last night I was in a live internet radio discussion with a creative designer in an upcomming mmo (couple years off still). And as much as I like fantasy settings, it seems like that's just overdone these days. And yet there is yet another game with elves and dragons etc etc.
As stated somewhere else in these comments, Full sail has many problems with teaching staff, and other issues that current and previous students have spoken about. If you want some more information on this, then maybe you should go have a look here. Full sail sued the original website site owner (surprise!) because they were losing business when all of the testimonials were nothing but the truth. The fact is, the only good testimonials that were on that website are from Full sail upper staff themselves. I was planning on going to look at Full sail before I saw UAT. I'm not going to be attending this school as soon as I complete some classes at community.
This field of work takes a lot of dedication, perseverance, and determination to get anywhere. Just like any career, it takes work, but with Game design/development you need to be on the top of your class to even be looked at. The best thing these colleges give is the mandatory to leave with at least two created, working, games. Actual work you leave with, this is what development firms look for.
No matter where you go to college, ITT, Full Sail, UAT, GuildHall (which looks interesting, I might attend there after UAT) you need some form of work experience to show to your future employer. I am majoring in Game development at UAT; my degree will be in software engineering - which is where most future programmers might want to look at. If you're serious about game design, you need to be able to do something more than just have an idea you need the want it, breathe it, and have the will to go after it with all of your heart.
I'm f#$king magic!