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Future Game Coders - Online Education or College?
An anonymous reader asks: "My cousin is about to graduate high school and wants to enter the game industry. I told him to get a day job (possibly as QA in a game studio) and get an online degree like DeVry's Game and Simulation Programming degree or The Art Institute of Pittsburgh's Game Art & Design degree. I have a BS and an MS in Computer Science, and I've only found what I learned mildly useful for my game programming hobby. Should he suck it up and get a 4-year degree, or is taking online courses focused on game development the way to go? Has anybody gotten one of these degrees and done well for themselves?"
Warning, this is a little offtopic.
No, just no. While Computer Science is definately extremely useful, and many jobs (like game development) are nice bets for it, saying that a CS degree should not teach you about practical programming because you can pick that up on your own is insanity. CS Degree should not focus on programming, that is correct (it should have a little bit, since it is applied math, but not much, you are right).
However, practical programming also is taught in school: its called software engineering. CS majors from schools where they teach "true" computer science, trying to pick up practical programming on their own, is simply a disaster waiting to happen. And since its by FAR the norm, the software development field currently IS a disaster. Programming is much more than just coding, and has its own set of theoritical concepts, from design patterns to architecture. You CAN pick that up on your own: more or less as easily as you can pick up all the theories you mentionned (which is not easy at all). Its possible, but simply put, most people require schooling to get it right.