Events questions?

Hi Hobo,

welcome to the boards..

I think it is great you are thinking about going to the higher options show – i wish I had gone when I was in secondary school. I do not know if you have to be part of a class group but it might be worth contacting the Irish Times to find out since they are involved in running it. Also check out the courses section of our website which gives brief intros to Irish courses.

Re igame again I know nothing about it. I suspect through it is more like a trade fair of games and products they want to sell than an industry type event where you find out about the jobs etc.

I don’t know what part of Ireland you live in but some colleges and IT run summer courses in programming which might be worth trying out – I know Carlow IT does and University of Ulster did this year –

probably the most important thing right now for you is to have the right subjects going into the leaving certificate and if you want to go the programming route concentrate on your maths and getting good grades while getting to know some of the programming languages in your spare time. Also remember there are good courses in the UK too so keep an eye on UCAS closing dates as well as the CAO.

hope that helps,

Aphra.

well i checked for for ya (my dads a secondary school teacher and brings students every year). He said you can go any year you like, theres no age limit, althought usually there is problems getting tickets. Order them early, best chance is through your guidance councilor in school. I remember going myself a good few years ago now, was well worth it :) Although at the time i did the open days at the colleges and those things coz it got me a day off school..

As for doing games i recommend if you want to do coding, then honours leaving cert maths will be a huge advantage. Coz you’ll do alot of calculus (very handy) and vector\matrice\trig\coord geometry. These are the fundamental maths for 2d\3d graphics. Also physics would be very useful. If your good at maths and your school has applied maths, this subject might also be worth doing, definately the most relevant subject for games i reckon.

Then ideally some sort of computer science based course (not necessarily a specialised games dev course coz there rare at the mo, over here anyway). Just a course which has a large content of programming, it doesnt necessarily have to be c++, because typically cs degrees do whatever language is in fashion at the time. Before i started it was c++, then when i was in college it was java and now i hear its c#. Key is if you know one language then you’ll learn new ones pretty quickly. The important thing is that your taught formally how to break down problems and solve then using programming skills. Its a different way of thinking about problems.

Can only speak from my experience but i did a cs degree and then a msc in ai both in u.c.c. I didnt do anything specific in games(i.e. a games degree). Although my msc had some games related ai and now i managed to get myself into the games industry as a games programmer(soon to start, sept). So it is possible to get your foot in the door, without a specific background\education in games.

p.s. if you want to learn coding i would recommend basic or dark basic (for games), they’re easier to learn than C++. C++ is really a language you learn after you can code abit. Lots of info on the web on basic and its pretty powerful. Dark basic can be used to create some very cool games with a small amount of code. Also dark basic also used to offer a school license so you might be able to get yourself an educational copy. If not i think its like 50 dollars or something

Speaking as probably now the second youngest here I’d say definitly go to the Higher Options event. While there I was still torn between a few colleges and courses and it really helped me to narrow down my choices. Once the people there think your interested they’ll give you all the time you want and go through the course specifics with you if your lucky to find someone involved with the course.

Oh and don’t forget to stop by the Irish Army stand and play with all the guns! :D

As for course choices, what the others have said is the best advice. I did Honours Maths, Physics and Applied Maths for my LC and its really stood to me so far in my course (BSc. Computer Applications in DCU) so if you do want to get into programming definitly consider those subjects.