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Students Flock To GMU For a Degree In Video Game Design
Hugh Pickens writes "The Washington Post reports that officials at George Mason University are quickly finding out that they have vastly underestimated interest in the school's new bachelor's degree in video game design. 'We've been overwhelmed,' says Scott M. Martin, assistant dean for technology, research, and advancement at GMU. 'Our anticipated enrollment for the fall is 500 percent higher than we expected.' George Mason first offered the program last fall, when officials anticipated that it would enroll about 30 full-time students, but currently 200 students are enrolled and that number is increasing. Course titles under the program include 'History of Computer Game Design,' while other courses focus on computer programming, digital arts, and graphics and motion capture. Although many colleges offer courses and degrees in computer gaming in the United States, GMU offers the only four-year program in the DC area, an important market for gaming because serious games — those used to train military and special operations, doctors, and others who use simulators — are becoming a market force in the region because of the proximity to federal government centers."
My university's new "Cannabis Horticulture" degree has quadrupled university enrollment. Who would have thought that offering a degree in something that every teenager enjoys would drastically increase enrollment?
Not to worry though, George Mason. Within about a year they'll come to the harsh realization that *designing* videogames is a helluva lot different than *playing* videogames. Shortly after your first C++ midterm, your numbers should stabilize a bit.
On a related note, am I the only one who went into a programming degree realizing that C++ and Java programming are nothing like playing Halo 3? I mean come on, not even on Legendary.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
The job market will be flooded with applicants in a few years. If you're going to college soon and want a job afterward, for love of god, pick a different path. It'll be just like CS was in the early 00's.
Or follow your dreams, or whatever. You can always work at Starbucks after you graduate.
This is clearly a result of the scouts merit badge for computer gaming.
Waiting for the other shoe to...
If the people are interested, and have the ability to create video games, they may find doing a normal computer science degree much much more rewarding. If you major in computer science, you then have the ability to produce video games, but you also have the rest of the software world to look for potenial jobs. I would most likely discourage a friend looking into this for those reasons. You may not have super video game specifics, but you have more than the foundation to get there.
for these kids to realize that the "glamorous" lifestyle of the video game designer is a lie. More like death marches galore, low pay, and shady companies.
Research this stuff first kids!
Sent from your iPad.
I'm disappointed to see an institution with as good a reputation as GMU creating what is ostensibly a vocational training program. Programs such as this prepare students for one and only one role in a specialized industry, instead of preparing them with a more well rounded education. Mores the pity too. I guess GMU wants to compete head to head with schools that advertise on G4.
There can't possibly be that many job openings in this field. This is about as silly as Unv Florida cranking out tons of degrees in marine biology when the reality is that there are less than 1000 of these specialty jobs in the US.
I know a ton of people that would love to think they're getting an education by being taught "video game design". Just because they've taken a few tests doesn't mean they can create a good video game, and no employer is going to take a degree in the place of experience and results to show for it.
If you owned a video game studio, who would you publish? Some guy who sat on his ass and got a degree in "video game design" from some no-name school? Or some guy that programmed and released for free an innovative game over the internet? I'd take the guy that has results. The degree is not going to help you, showing an employer you know what you're doing through a tangible product will get you hired. Bring a disc or web address to an interview, not a piece of paper.
to be fair, it's really only two numbers. ;-)
Sent from your iPad.
I'd say at least 75% of the people I knew in CS originally got interested in the subject at least partially because of video games. Most people eventually move on to other areas, either because they don't want to deal with the harder math and classes involved, they don't want to move to one of the few areas that has game development, or they read about how horrible the working conditions and want to have a life outside of that instead.
But most of us started there. If there had been a video game dev track at my college, I would have been in it. I practically was, with all of the 3d graphics coding and gaming capstone I took.
And the military sim market is definitely a growing poor man's gaming industry. It's where I ended up... and it's fun, but nowhere close to as "glamorous" as a real game shop. I remember begging out boss to let us even do light maps, but it just isn't a priority.
Is anyone getting flashbacks of that Westwood College advertisement where the two losers are "working" at a video game production house, and explain to their boss that they need to "tighten up the graphics on Level 3?" (They've taken down the copy on YouTube, otherwise I'd post a link.)
I wonder if this is going to be similar to what happened in the late 90s in the field of systems administration. During the dotcom run-up, salaries went pretty high for anyone who had even the slightest clue about computers. TONS of places were pumping out certified but unqualified network and systems admins, and we're still dealing with a lot of them now. Now given that this is an actual college, and they get a real degree out of the deal, it might not be as bad. And I'm sure the video game houses appreciate at least a minimal amount of training. From what I've heard, there are legions and legions of folks who don't mind the low pay and 100 hour work weeks just so they can say they design video games for a living. Providing a games publisher with a steady stream of newbies who are qualified beyond, "I like video games and want to be involved in "the business." (Replace video games with computers, and you get what happened during the dotcom boom.
He's not even kidding. I am a graduate of Full Sail's Game Dev program; alumni of one of the first classes through their BS program (which was one of the first Game Dev BS programs).
My class started with 80 students and ended with 20. They do find out eventually! (Perhaps $20,000-$40,000 later.)
Because you can't both be taking classes for this degree program and do video game design and programming on the side?
There are trade-offs; colleges don't want to pay for more faculty / facilities than they believe they'll have the enrollment to support (and therefore justify), but when there's huge demand, they'll try to adapt to it.
Like anything else in which there's even a partial free market :) Milk, yoga lessons, vacations to Brazil ...
GMU, btw, is a state school (biggest university by enrollment in the state of Virginia), which means it's fairly cheap for people from Virginia, and cheaper than typical private colleges / universities for non-residents as well.
I'd heard of it, but knew nothing about it really until a few years ago -- now I'm familiar at least with the names of many of their excellent (libertarian leaning) economics professors, through the podcast called EconTalk (econtalk.org).
Cheers,
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
And this is why I love coming here. Do you realize how tiny a percentage of the world's population would get that joke? If /. were a country, I would be packing my bags and filling out my immigration papers to get there right now.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
With the possible exception of casual games; the game designer, programmer, and artist are likely to be different people. So I wouldn't be looking to hire someone with all of those skills, but instead, the best people I could find in each category.
What a lot of people publishing this story don't seem to realize is that this degree isn't just called 'Game Design', it's 'Applied Computer Science in Game Design'. Basically you're getting a -normal- Computer Science degree, but in place of a number of the electives you'd otherwise get to choose (ex: Robotics, Software Engineering, Data Mining), you're just taking the 'Game Design' courses instead.
So even if you fail at game design, you still have a Computer Science degree and the knowledge that comes with it.
[GMU also offers similar ACS programs in Geography, Biology, and Software Engineering]
Colleges and universities can usually only take in so many people and will judge who gets in on various criteria. Test scores are a major one. Another is that if the school gets state funds, then they must give priorities to state residents. Letter of recommendation and other factors may play into things. Legacies where the students parent is alumni also matter. Still they can only take some many new students.
However, most of those new students are new and will all be taking freshmen level courses that are basically the same for everybody. After you get accepted into a school, you have to sign up for classes. Classes are first come first serve, so if they fill up, a student may have to take less or different classes than they want.
Many students will just sign up and get into the school as "undeclared" which means they haven't chosen their major yet. As the year goes on, they may declare a major as they see fit. It's probably possible to go about two or three years without ever declaring a major (but that's usually not the best for actually getting a degree unless you really have your shit together). As time goes on, a student may change degrees several times. So long as they don't change colleges which would change the base course they need to take, it's usually not an issue. I suspect what has happened is that the school let some many new students in, but then when they declared their major (which can happen at any time) they had five times as many students write down video game developer as expected.
If all those students stick with it, the school probably still have a year or two to increase the classes needed. Otherwise, most schools aren't beyond just letting it go to Darwinistic fight over who gets into the available classes which might force some students to change majors or take longer to get through school.
a bunch of maps put together in your free time, no matter how awesome, are not likely going to do well against another applicant who has paid experience. "Look at this cool map I made for X game" is not nearly as eye catching on a resume as "Worked on X game, Y game, Z game...." even minor jobs look better when you have been paid for it.
go out, take the shit jobs, and earn your way in with a few titles under your belt... not hobby crafts.
the preceding post was not spell checked... suck it.
No game designer should need to know C++. That's for programmers. You can design excellent games using existing engines without touching compiled code. Scripting in lua, python, SCUMM, whatever is all you really need.
So what is the plan here then? To churn the video game equivalent of javascript/web designers? Equating video web design with simple game scripting is like equating enterprise computing with dynamic web page programming. A 4-year degree just for that, for designing on top of existing engines? No discussions on how to design one, on understanding what it takes to make a game (both vertically and horizontally programming, architecture and integration)?
Unless a person is a natural when it comes to understanding programing (efficient programming that is), I highly doubt (based on what I've seen) the average programming student can get that type of understanding without getting closer to the metal. In particular, if this school is banking on being in the DC area and attract the heavy duty simulation market (in the military and medical fields), they need to provide a bit more than just teaching how to program on top of a engine with a scripting language.
I wish I could have just gotten 4 years of that newbie experience under my belt instead of spending it on a degree who's only real worth today is to get you that newbie job to begin with.
Sorry to hear that, but we get what we put in. The only way to get some expertise under the belt before graduation is by doing internships if possible, or work in computer labs as a second option. And by working in computer labs I don't mean showing students how to eject the CD drive but doing actual administration and setup (and luckily sysadmin programming/scripting.) The other option is to get an AA/AS degree, then get a job (even if only a data entry/report generating one) while doing the remaining junior and senior year at a 4-year college. With that path, it is almost certain to accumulate 1-2 years of programming experience...
Some anecdotal stories for shits and giggles... When I was in community college, I did everything I could to get a "computer" job. I was working at Home Depot at the time (selling floor/tile stuff and driving forklifts). I pestered management to gave me a job at the store data center (where they ran these old mini-computers and stuff.) Management tried, but there was never an opening. Later I got a part-time job at the comm.college computer lab, setting up software while tutoring and assisting teaching intro-to-micro courses, Pascal, Assembly, C and DBase. First connection was my Pascal professor with whom I got another part-time job doing Visual Basic programming... now I'm programming while getting paid!!!!
Next connection came from another professor with whom I was taking Delphi and Expert Systems programming. Through his class I get to meet a senior developer at one large insurance firm in my city (one of the largest in the country at the time). When I got my AA, he took me under his wing and got a job developing applications with FoxPro (we were doing the transition from procedural to object-oriented programming back then.) I did that while doing my junior and senior year in CS. On my last year, through another connection, I got a part-time job at the computer science department, doing Unix administration. I left my full-time FoxPro job to concentrate on the last 6 months of my senior year while working on that Unix admin job.
I graduated with my BS degree (and 3 years of programming experience already). Through another connection I made with school and work, I got a research job at a research center (distributed systems, formal methods and security were the focus of research). So as I'm plowing my way through the MS program and doing a lot of really good shit in C and C++, network protocol programming, distributed systems and the like, we started working with Java and CORBA...
and alas, through yet, another connection with the research center, I met a group of developers funding a start-up company that was heavy on Java and CORBA. Off I went to my full-time Java development job. 3 years of programming experience and 2 years of research with immediate industrial application sponsored by people doing that for a living. Just a year and a half after graduating with a BS degree and right in the middle of my masters.
After that job, I've had many others, many of them thank exactly for the type of research I did (performance evaluation of distributed authentication systems to be precise.) From SQL and relational database theory to software engineering to network programing to algorithm/complexity theory, each had helped me in a real way in the real world.
My advice to people studying CS - work on your connections and pursue internships/college lab jobs. Many of my friends from college got really sweet jobs right off the bat because they did internships. We get from college what we put in.
Sure I learned some things doing my CS degree, but most of it could have been learned just as well