Advice anyone?? :]

[Brockx7]

Hi, I'm Brock.

I was wondering if anyone here could give me a some advice? I watched Falco's Introduction to Game Development video on Youtube and took his advice. I bought a C++ book and have been teaching myself the language. The end of my senior year is approaching and I want to pursue programming in college. However I am not exactly sure which program to take.

The college I plan on attending has two different degree programs. One is a Associate's in Computer Technology with four different focuses. One being what I think would be most beneficial, Application Development Technology. Lastly, is a Bachelors degree in Computer Science.

I'm not sure which of these would be best for what I want to do, which is ultimately program games.

Thanks for whoever took the time to read this thread, and I look forward to hearing from you!

-Brock.

[dandymcgee]

I'm going for my Bachelor's in Computer Science right now, because I believe that is what will prove most valuable in today's industry. An associate's is only a 2-year program, and as such is not worth quite as much as a 4-year bachelor's degree.

You really need to decide what's right for you. How long do you plan to attend college for? How much do you already know? Do you have anything on your resume related to the field that could make your stick out from the rest of the applicants? These are the types of questions you should carefully consider.

[Falco Girgis]

A bachelor's degree in computer science is by FAR the most useful. Those "technical" degrees are for things like Windows Networking, and usually barely even touch on programming (if they do, it's script kiddy-ish/Visual Basic type things). You need to have a good understanding of computer science in general for game development.

The vast majority of developers in the market today have a BS in computer science.

[Brockx7]

Thanks for the reply DandyMcgee.

I was leaning more towards Computer Science because like you said, a Bachelor's would be a better pick over an Associate's.

However the program description doesn't completely leave me knowledgeable with what the course will pertain. Exactly what are you learning in your course Dandy? Are you learning the in's and outs of C++ or some other language, or were you expected to know that previous to taking the course. Are you just learning the steps to correctly construct a program? Or is all this tied together in the class. (Also I know Computer Science is a whole lot more than that, but to be honest I'm not 100% sure what It all includes!)

If you could briefly describe to me whats in store, I'd really appreciate it. :] Thanks.

-Brock

[dandymcgee]

Thanks for the reply DandyMcgee.

I was leaning more towards Computer Science because like you said, a Bachelor's would be a better pick over an Associate's.

However the program description doesn't completely leave me knowledgeable with what the course will pertain. Exactly what are you learning in your course Dandy? Are you learning the in's and outs of C++ or some other language, or were you expected to know that previous to taking the course. Are you just learning the steps to correctly construct a program? Or is all this tied together in the class. (Also I know Computer Science is a whole lot more than that, but to be honest I'm not 100% sure what It all includes!)

If you could briefly describe to me whats in store, I'd really appreciate it. :] Thanks.

-Brock

It varies at every school, but I'll do my best to summarize my experiences so far. Keep in mind I'm a freshman in college and am only in my second semester.

The CS major courses I've taken so far:
Calculus I
Calculus II
Intro to Software Engineering I
Intro to Software Engineering II
Discrete Mathematics

Calculus is a general math course and therefore does not directly relate what you learn to software engineering.

Intro to SE I was an accelerated introduction to programming with Microsoft's Visual C# as the language of choice for my school.
Intro to SE II focused on creating useful demos the first month or so (collision, user interfaces, databases) and the remainder of the course will be spent on a client/server group game project.

Discrete Math has tied in closely with CS concepts since the beginning, with the professor using C-style syntax to present actual code examples. He has also used Algol syntax in a few of the more recent examples (specifically pertaining to search and sort algorithms).

Overall I've enjoyed the major-related courses I've taken, and would highly recommend pursuing a B.S. in Computer Science to anyone interested in the field.

P.S. Call me Dan. It's both easier to type and far less.. 7th grade (when I started using this username).

[Brockx7]

Thanks a lot Dan, I appreciate the insight. :] Also, thanks Falco for yours as well!

From what you said it sounds like it basically depends school to school what programming language is used throughout the course. Also that's really cool that you are getting to work on a game project! I really hope that my school takes an approach similar to yours.