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I’ve been reading up on the percentage of students who get firsts and 2.1s at university in the UK. I was amazed to see that only 4% of students at Abertay get a first and only 18% get a 2.1. Then I got to thinking (and this is my question).
Is there any data out there on how many game development students obtain a first class honours? I would like to have all UK courses represented, but one university would suffice.
The same info on Irish universities would also be great, but I know that seems impossible to find.
By the way, HESA.ac.uk has a lot of info on this sort of thing. It’s a good resource.
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WHAT? :shock:
I would have thought that the majority of students over there would be getting those kinds of grades…
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I think that information would be hard to come by. Typically the number of 1st i would say should be around 10% for a decent course. Then 40-50% 2.1 & 2.2. But im just pulling those number outta my arse.
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On my course they simply handout 1sts because my course is so hard and the lack of people doing it.
I’m doing mathematical sciences in UCC, and I’m in a class of over achievers. one guy in my class takes notes on his laptop in a format called Latex while the lecture is ongoing. it’s the equivalent of writing your notes in HTML so that they look prettier.
last test we had the class average was 84%
also it’s hard to create a curve when its maths, its either right or wrong. and we’re badly needed everywhere. I’ll probably work in either software engineering , political research creating social economic models for immigration and stuff or as an actuary or engineereing. I’ve got a lot of options
also there is only something like 10 in most of my lectures and there’s only maybe 5 courses in IReland doing A pure maths course.
was thinking about doing those courses in England, but could not afford it. I emailed around to a few HR places in the gaming industry and got an overwhelming response that I should do Maths Science because that is what is needed in Graphics programming. they also gave me a long list of compsci books to read (thanks rare). also those courses are very narrow in field IMO. and with the constant change in the video game industry, will all the techniques you learn stand the test of time? Caerlow IT are only trying to increase the numbers attending and then pushes the majority of them into engineering.
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steve i wouldnt saw graphics is entirely maths. you dont have to be a maths wizard to do graphics. im not :)
As for handing out 1.1’s thats a u.c.c. thing (it was before i was there, it was when i left last sept), every course is like that. I do agree maths is a handy thing to have but the subjects the industry is hiring up for at the moment is physicists and people who can do network programming. Both areas being the critical part of next-gen games. AI to a lesser extent but will be more crucial once the first\second wave of games are out, IMHO.
Mostly though specialising in one area at college doesnt really matter in the games industry when you first start because typically you wont be using them at first. You’ll be hired because your smart (and fair enough you didnt those subjects) and they will eventually grow you into a role which uses them, when you’ve gain enough experience doing other things related to the game. I was hired at Sega because of my msc in AI but im not doing AI yet because i need to understand the various aspects of the game first and learn from the more experience programmer before they give ya something as big as building the core ai for the next-gen game. I wouldnt want to be thrown into it anyway. Its too crucial. You ask most people who start in games development few went straight into something they were trained for in college, unless you come off a games degree.
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steve i wouldnt say graphics is entirely maths. you dont have to be a maths wizard to do graphics. im not[/quote:3e0a92d91e]
True. but you must admit that it helps, and in my opinion if you can program you are a math wizard. high school mathematics gives everybody the wrong idea about college mathematics. even the system of quaternions and stuff is complex mathematics.networking is set theory, on a very large scale. and a lot of protocols.
physics is applied maths or mechanics, which I do, all that fluid mechanics and stuff tensor theory, I don’t do thermodynamics or plasma or quantum theory but that isn’t important to games. I’ve done modules in networking, my course is crazy.
yeah I’m fine though, at this stage i could end up being a politician. it’s kinda disgusting aint it….
I would agree though, course doesn’t matter entirely. if you’re good enough, you’re good enough.
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I wouldnt agree “if you can progam your a maths wizard”. Im a pretty decent coder and im not a maths wizard. some of our best programmers at sega and im sure its the same for other places arent maths wizs. sure it helps but alot of game code requires very routine maths.
As for quaternions true about them being useful for camera systems, but really alot of the libs etc do those operations for you, so some people can treat them as black boxes for want of a better word. Although if your jobs is to write these libraries (which mine is\was), then ya you do need to understand them fully.
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I haven’t done any coding involving maths in quiet a long time.
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The message from these extremely smart gentlemen is, folks, if you’re smart you’re made.
Actually knowing stuff, IMNSHO, is only a small part of hire-ability. The real key thing is self-regulated learning, because in a learning institution it’s too easy to get by through following orders and the rest of the pack. Everything you actually learn will be a shadow of a memory in a few years, unless you practice it…but if you demonstrated that you can ‘pick things up’ quickly, then your potential bosses will know you can recall your past knowledge in a few days. Or something similar in a week, or completely new in two.
Has this gone slightly off-topic? Number of firsts – more than it should be, I’d say…
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Handing out marks like that for nothing? Not in DCU they don’t… :roll:
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Cheers, lads. For anyone who’s interested, here’s a table of UK universities and their grade percentages. The first number represents Firsts and the second number represents 2.1s.
% getting 1st / % getting 2:1
Aberdeen 8, 43
Abertay Dundee 4, 18
Anglia Poly 9, 47
Uni of Arts, London 10, 44
Aston 10, 59
Bath 18, 55
Belfast 12, 45
Birmingham 11, 53
Bolton 9, 37
Bournemouth 8, 54
Bradford 10, 42
Brighton 9, 48
Bristol 18, 56
Brunel 14, 52
Bucks Chilterns 7, 40
Cambridge 22, 57
Cantebury ChCh 7, 38
Cardiff 13, 55
Trinity Carmathen 8, 37
Central England 10, 45
Central Lancs 7, 41
Chester 4, 39
Chichester 5, 42
City 15, 44
Coventry 9, 42
De Montfort 5, 35
Derby 7, 40
Dundee 10, 34
Durham 16, 58
East Anglia 10, 56
East London 7, 38
Edge Hill 5, 30
Edinburgh 14, 49
Essex 10, 44
Exeter 13, 57
Glamorgan 13, 36
Glasgow 11, 41
Glasgow Caledonian 6, 33
Gloucestershire 5, 39
Goldsmiths 11, 51
Greenwich 9, 36
Harper Adams 6, 33
Heriot Watt 13, 32
Hertfordshire 9, 38
Huddersfield 8, 35
Hull 9, 50
Imperial 25, 38
Keele 9, 45
Kent 12, 48
KCL 14, 47
Kingston 9, 49
Lancaster 11, 54
Leeds 12, 55
Leeds Met 7, 41
Leicester 10, 49
Lincoln 6, 43
Liverpool 12, 43
Liverpool Hope 3, 37
Liverpool John Moores 8, 42
LSE 19, 56
London South Bank 10, 40
Loughborough 13, 52
Luton 5, 40
Manchester 15, 50
UMIST 17, 46
Manchester Met 7, 38
Middlesex 9, 39
Napier 6, 26
Newcastle 10, 50
NE Wales 4, 34
Northampton 9, 44
Nottingham 14, 58
Nottingham Trent 7, 47
Oxford 23, 63
Brookes 9, 42
Paisley 3, 16
Plymouth 8, 44
Portsmouth 6, 36
QM Edinburgh 5, 31
QM & Westfield 12, 36
Reading 12, 52
Robert Gordon 9, 33
Roehampton 4, 46
Royal Holloway 13, 54
Salford 13, 38
SOAS 15, 61
Sheffield 13, 55
Hallam 7, 48
Southampton 17, 50
Southampton Institute 4, 37
Staffordshire 7, 40
St Andrews 13, 57
St Mark & John 6, 42
St Martins 4, 37
St Marys 7, 41
Stirling 9, 47
Strathclyde 9, 36
Sunderland 9, 43
Surrey 10, 43
Surrey Institute 8, 51
Sussex 16, 56
Swansea 5, 36
Teesside 8, 37
Thames Valley 11, 39
Trinity & All Saints 5, 48
UCL 17, 48
UH Millennium 0, 1
Ulster 12, 49
Wales – Aberysthwyth 8, 52
Wales – Bangor 11, 42
Wales – Newport 7, 43
Wales – Swansea 10, 47
Wales Institute 7, 42
Warwick 20, 57
West England, Bristol 10, 46
Westminster 10, 49
Winchester 6, 52
Wolverhampton 5, 47
Worcester 5, 36
York 18, 52
York St John 8, 44
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