Hi, I'm a Senior in high school this year. I'm pretty certain I decided on a college for next year, but I want to ask those of you who are already there.
I've been looking at Milwaukee School of Engineering for a double-major in Computer and Software Engineering, but as of yesterday, I got mail from Neumont University and their BS in Software and Game Development (and price) seem very attractive.
I love games, programming, and electronics, but I'm not sure where I'd want to be. Does anyone have any opinions?
You can dual major in CpE and software engineering? They're entirely different schools at my college. I'm a CpE major, and it's a pretty typical engineering discipline. Software Engineering, IIRC, is more business-oriented managerial stuff than hard science and math.
Also, I'd give you my opinion, but I'd probably be wrong. I'm bad at this whole adult real-life career thing.
At MSOE there's CE CS. CS is the more theoretical stuff while CE is the practical stuff.
The thing is, I love messing around with my Arduino and electronics, but I also like the higher level application programming.
Do you live in wisconsin? I almost went to MSOE this year, but I found it way too expensive. Instead, I went to UW-Platteville. I'm in the Software Engineering program here and from what I've heard before, it's a great place to graduate from. MSOE is about $40k-$50k per year, and at UW-Platteville it's only about $15k per year.
I'm in Wisconsin. I can afford MSOE. I have looked at Platteville and Stout, but I feel that MSOE will be the best for me. I also have several friends going there.
Do whatever you think is best. If it turns out that you don't like it, you can always transfer. A person I know just graduated from MSOE last year and said that it was just a place that likes to take your money. But again, it's whatever you decide to do. I've never heard about Neumont, so maybe somebody else will have more information about it.
[QUOTE=ROBO_DONUT;32295144]Software Engineering, IIRC, is more business-oriented managerial stuff than hard science and math.[/QUOTE]
Software engineering is things like design patterns and refactoring, basically how to keep a large codebase understandable and maintainable so it doesn't devolve into a mess of spaghetti code. It's very different from hard computer science (which involves "mathy" things like graph theory and "big O" algorithm complexity) and computer engineering (which is more hardware-oriented, e.g. digital logic circuits), but it's also very different from business and management. It's still a very technical field.
[QUOTE=Agent766;32295267]The thing is, I love messing around with my Arduino and electronics,[/QUOTE]
That's essentially computer engineering,
[QUOTE=Agent766;32295267]but I also like the higher level application programming.[/QUOTE]
and software engineering is valuable for this.
[QUOTE=Wyzard;32296687]That's essentially computer engineering,
and software engineering is valuable for this.[/QUOTE]
Which is why I plan on double majoring :v:
I'm mostly wondering what the job outlook is for people with BSs in Game Programming. It's actually game and software programming so I would get experience with application development too.
I got some college mail from them as well. Average GPA of incoming students doesn't look that great, neither do ACT scores. I would do some research to see how the quality of your education there would be compared to MSOE.
[QUOTE=robmaister12;32297032][high school] Average GPA[/QUOTE]
...is totally and completely arbitrary.
Gotta love teachers who grade notebooks and the 'presentation' of your assignments (i.e. how much glitter you have), then look the other way when all the 'good' kids are copying each other's take-home test in the library.
Maybe I just had a shitty high school though.
I'd put more weight on SAT scores, but I'm not admissions-guy (or whatever the title is)
If you want to specialize in game programming then getting a degree in game programming seems reasonable, but I don't think I'd do it. Computer science and software engineering give you a foundation for figuring out how to solve problems, and you can apply them to any sort of software project you work on. A "game programming" degree is likely to be training in specific technologies like OpenGL, and that sort of job-specific training is something I'd expect to find at a trade school, not a university.
My recommendation would be to study computer science and/or software engineering, and learn industry-specific stuff on your own or on the job. You'll have to learn things on the job anyway — even in a particular industry like gaming, you can be sure that each company does things a little differently — and it's better IMO to learn the foundation first and then learn specific applications on top of it.
[QUOTE=ROBO_DONUT;32297124]...is totally and completely arbitrary.
Gotta love teachers who grade notebooks and the 'presentation' of your assignments (i.e. how much glitter you have), then look the other way when all the 'good' kids are copying each other's take-home test in the library.
Maybe I just had a shitty high school though.
I'd put more weight on SAT scores, but I'm not admissions-guy (or whatever the title is)[/QUOTE]
I understand that, but when 90% of incoming MSOE students are getting at least a 3.0 / <20% are getting less than a 23 on the ACT, and you look at Neumont and almost half the incoming students have less than a 3.0 and 52% are getting less than a 23 on the ACT, it makes you wonder if the quality of your education there will be better.
I'm not saying that it's outright worse, it could be a really cool place that can see past GPA and SAT/ACT scores with students who love to learn about their major but couldn't care less about their high school classes, but it could also mean that students going there aren't as motivated to study as students from some other schools.
Sources (the data is reported by the schools though):
[url]http://www.collegedata.com/cs/data/college/college_pg02_tmpl.jhtml?schoolId=1952[/url]
[url]http://www.collegedata.com/cs/data/college/college_pg02_tmpl.jhtml?schoolId=1770[/url]
[editline]14th September 2011[/editline]
and I agree with Wyzard, I want to go into game programming, but I'm planning on studying CS in college.
I didn't give a shit about high school, I ended up with like a 3.2 GPA
Which is bad because that's what you get with no effort
To that point I got a 30 on the ACT and am taking CSE classes (mixed compsci and comp. engineering) and they're all basically fundamentals of coding shit
maybe because I'm a freshman in college but oh well
If I decided to go the game programming path, would it be easy enough for me to find a job having a SE degree?
Probably, but the chances of you getting a job in game programming is low.
I'm attending a very specific degree entirely for game and simulation programming. So what I'm about to say I'm only repeating from my instructors; I don't have any industry experience.
Getting into the game industry isn't so much about your degree. Knowing your shit definitely helps, but they mostly want to see what you've done. A lot of companies now won't hire you unless you have so many "game credits," which are basically games with your name in the credits. And that is to say, respectable games. Games that would impress a potential employer. The other way to get your foot in the door is networking. Get to know people in the industry (which is especially easy if you go to a college where your professors [i]are[/i] in the industry).
Another thing I've heard is that companies like Valve hire directly from their modding community. They look for people who use their own Source SDK and hire them instead of having to teach new people. The same is true for any companies that use the Unreal Engine. If you're familiar with Unreal, those companies will be more likely to hire you (not saying it's a [b]huge[/b] edge, but it is considered).
I guess my main point is: To get into the industry, it's less about the degree, and more about your reputation. Where a game programming degree really helps is the networking aspects, getting internships actually in the industry and building your portfolio while still in school.
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