Hobbyist or Professional?

[Andy K.]

Hey Hey everybody,

I know a lot of you are quite younger, and some are the same age as me, but here is a good question... Do you ever want to code or design professionally or do you want to just always be a coder in your free time for fun, or go totally indie? My friend Edmund M. (Meat Boy, Gish, Dead Baby Dress-up) has lived his entire life making a living off indie games.

So what do you think about yourself?

Myself, well I'm in school right now to do it professionally, but who knows what I'll do after I graduate. I love the idea of indie games and developing without big companies, but I like to get paid too. So I'm a bit in between at the moment.

[Falco Girgis]

My career path is with the government right now. I'm cooping as a test engineer. My supervisor has said that he can get me a government position if I continue on when I graduate. Working for the government has tons of benefits, job security, and great pay.

Sooner or later I'm going to have a huge internal battle about whether I want to endure shitty hours with worse pay and benefits to do what I love, or have a cushy, secure, well paying job that I don't like doing as much.

We shall see.

[Andy K.]

My career path is with the government right now. I'm cooping as a test engineer. My supervisor has said that he can get me a government position if I continue on when I graduate. Working for the government has tons of benefits, job security, and great pay.

Sooner or later I'm going to have a huge internal battle about whether I want to endure shitty hours with worse pay and benefits to do what I love, or have a cushy, secure, well paying job that I don't like doing as much.

We shall see.

Ah yes, I've been in that situation before, and took the WRONG career path... *facepalm*

Government jobs ARE cushy dude, that's going to be one hell of a decision. You could do what a lot of people I know do, stay in those cushy jobs and self-fund your indie developing lifestyle! Hell, I know 50 year olds who are doing this!

[programmerinprogress]

I'm currently a college student(UK sixth form), but I hope to get onto a Computer Science Degree course, hopefully when I graduate, I'll try and get a job as a programmer (I'm not sure if I want to do games or simply applications, I think I would be happy with either,but I haven't quite decided yet)

I definitely want to be a professional programmer, I currently study business at A2 (and I have my GCSE), so I hope to perhaps start a software company one day (but that's a long time in the future), but to answer your original question, I would love to be a professional programmer.

Did I say AS?, I mean't A-Level, i'm in the 2nd year!

[M_D_K]

I'm a hobbyist right now, but looking to go pro.

I'm doing A level stuff right now so I kinda have to fight for time.

[Falco Girgis]

I also want to emphasize that I'm a Computer Engineer not Computer Science major.

[Andy K.]

I also want to emphasize that I'm a Computer Engineer not Computer Science major.

oh right, I remember you making fun of the CS nerds... Isn't that right, XxStillavirgin69xX

[Moosader]

I also want to emphasize that I'm a Computer Engineer not Computer Science major.

oh right, I remember you making fun of the CS nerds... Isn't that right, XxStillavirgin69xX

Which reminds me, that I guess either CS students at your school don't take math, or they're scared of it. CS people around here have to take up to Calc 3.


I'm more interested in pursuing my own stuff right now, but once I graduate I'm going to apply at some smaller, start-up game companies (Black Lantern, while not making very impressive games, is pretty close to me).
'Til graduation, I'm doing data entry for a mutual fund company. I can barely get my 20 hours a week, though, and I might have to find something else.

[avansc]

i dont know if i would call the creator of gish an indy developer.
i would consider him a "professional".

and actually you have to be very carful with the word professional, because strictly speacing scomputer scientist are not professionals.

to be considered a professional there are some things your "profession" need to adhear by.

1. you have to get a degree from a certified institution. ie univirsity.
2. you have to be certified by some sort of board (computer science does not have a body like this)
3. your skill has to be of importance and great need. (some say computer science falls here but some say no.)

a doctor is a prime example of what a professional is. they go to univirsity, they have to be board certified, and their skill is greatly needed.

[Andy K.]

i dont know if i would call the creator of gish an indy developer.
i would consider him a "professional".

and actually you have to be very carful with the word professional, because strictly speacing scomputer scientist are not professionals.

to be considered a professional there are some things your "profession" need to adhear by.

1. you have to get a degree from a certified institution. ie univirsity.
2. you have to be certified by some sort of board (computer science does not have a body like this)
3. your skill has to be of importance and great need. (some say computer science falls here but some say no.)

a doctor is a prime example of what a professional is. they go to univirsity, they have to be board certified, and their skill is greatly needed.

You're waaaay too literal, dude

[programmerinprogress]

I mean, I don't do really math-based subjects at A-Level, I do Computing though, which is sufficient at most Universities.

I have a fairly good understanding of my subjects, even though I'm not really an expert mathematician, I can understand why it would be useful in many respects, but they didn't really encourage me to take math-based subjects (although when I enquired about Edinburgh Uni, they wanted maths at A-Level)

There's kind of a divide in our computing class though (I'm saying this at the risk of someone in my class seeing this, if they happen to stumble on this forum), one side, are the maths/physics people, they sort of think they know it all, they play games constantly, and talk about them, at the top of their voice, all lesson!, they annoy the hell out of me.
Then there's my side, we're quieter, but we still have a laugh, we're not always talking about games, and we generally get on with the work, we usually also get the praise from our teacher, as we usually solve the problems they've set us first, it's good

I think the overall culture is a little different in the UK, we do our maths/science/English up until we're 16, then we get left to our own devices, and choose what we want to do (we choose based on our uni entry requirements I guess)

[Trask]

Right now I\'m a hobbyist but my college education is geared toward becoming a professional. I don\'t have nearly as much time as needed to really keep this up as a hobby and do my real job(IT Tech), but I get paid well for my lack of college degree, so I\'m expecting a lower salary when I do get into an entry level programming position. I wish I could do some programming on the side at work or something to add to the resume, but nothing at my job requires any bit of it. And the network team locks down much of anything that I could throw together in a VBscript that would be useful around here.

I\'m one of those CS freaks and I don\'t know about typical CS majors, but my degree is in Software Engineering with the major in Game Programming and my school requires me to take a class in algebra, Cal 1&2, and discrete math... that seems like a healthy dose of math to me, I don\'t know if it really is or not.

So yeah, I hope to go Pro one day, but I really need to work on more game projects to add to a portfolio or something. I am working on an engine as we speak, based off a book and I hope to make some real progress soon.

[avansc]

i dont know if i would call the creator of gish an indy developer.
i would consider him a "professional".

and actually you have to be very carful with the word professional, because strictly speacing scomputer scientist are not professionals.

to be considered a professional there are some things your "profession" need to adhear by.

1. you have to get a degree from a certified institution. ie univirsity.
2. you have to be certified by some sort of board (computer science does not have a body like this)
3. your skill has to be of importance and great need. (some say computer science falls here but some say no.)

a doctor is a prime example of what a professional is. they go to univirsity, they have to be board certified, and their skill is greatly needed.

You're waaaay too literal, dude

thats now my definitions DUDE....

[Moosader]

i dont know if i would call the creator of gish an indy developer.
i would consider him a "professional".

and actually you have to be very carful with the word professional, because strictly speacing scomputer scientist are not professionals.

to be considered a professional there are some things your "profession" need to adhear by.

1. you have to get a degree from a certified institution. ie univirsity.
2. you have to be certified by some sort of board (computer science does not have a body like this)
3. your skill has to be of importance and great need. (some say computer science falls here but some say no.)

a doctor is a prime example of what a professional is. they go to univirsity, they have to be board certified, and their skill is greatly needed.

They (teachers) really hammer this into our head in CS classes at my Uni for some reason.

[dandymcgee]

They (teachers) really hammer this into our head in CS classes at my Uni for some reason.

What, the fact that you aren't technically professionals? Lol, nice.