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Ok so I’m sure this has come up before. Im trying to figure out what course is best.
UCD Pros: It seems like a good and thorough course.
UCD is more renowned internationally.
A lot of my friends are going thereUCD Cons: It dosent seem to have any gaming culture in the school.
No modules involving game dev
Big classes of 60+ might be harder to learnDIT Pros: Smaller classes, easier learning.
Seems like there’s a big game culture there
In the fourth year you can specialize in Game devDIT Cons: Not well know internationally, degree doesn’t have as much prestige. so it would be easier to get a job with a degree from UCD
Harder to get to from where I live.As you can see Im a little conflicted. A lot of people are telling me that one is better then the other, but there people that went to that school.
any advice would be great
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I have never seen the supposed prestige of a degree affect a hiring decision. Once you come to try and enter the industry it will be on your own merit. You will likely also be tested on the day.
Why are you only considering UCD and DIT? why not DCU, TCD, UCC, UCL etc. or indeed going for the UK or further?
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yes while DIT V UCD might be meaningful in a local context you will find that getting a good degree, doing relevant projects and showing initiative outside of your coursework will get you very far.
People could say the same of Abertay V Cambridge in the UK, but we know where most of the games folks seem to come from (hint…not Cambridge – although I suppose I could be wrong there).
Aphra
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Portfolio > Degree
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What I think is more important when doing a course is looking at what software or languages they’re teaching.
DIT will be moving to a bigger campus in the coming years (although they’ve been saying that when I was there 2001-2005) but for the moment Kevin Street is where the game dev courses are.
Cost of living around there if you move into town isn’t bad, as long as you stay away from the expensive convenience stores, courses in DIT are generally more practical & hands on, and many of the courses have organised placements. It also runs stateofplay.ie and has Hugh and Bryan there who are top notch.
There are a couple of cons, if you’re into sports, DIT hasn’t got a big campus like UCD does or many sports facilities (although Kevin St does have a pool), and you’d probably be moving between kevin street and aungier street (200m). You do have Camden Street and all of town at your doorstep for going out, and I had a great time there, both in the social and academic side.
As for whether it’s the "prestige" of UCD being better known internationally, the games industry is a meritocracy, just pick the course that most closely matches what you’re good at, or want to learn, and choose that over a name. At the end of the day, completion of any course shows an employer that you’re capable of learning to a certain standard with expectations of improving from there, and you’ll be trained up in a particular direction once you get your foot on the ladder. The degree is rarely the be-all and end all. Showing that you’ve been working on projects through college and getting a 2.2 at the end is as likely to get you a job on the other end than having a 1st class honour, but no real-world experience.
Hope this helps!
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Agreed university prestige means nothing when applying for a games job. Unless the boss is a past graduate and only hires from the University he went too, which is a potentially dangerous policy to have.
I would have thought the only university really that people "might" know about outside Ireland is trinity and that’s mainly due to its history and not the quality of graduates or courses. Like any university you get good and bad students everywhere. After all just because you get 500 points in the leaving doesn’t mean you’ll have the aptitude to be a good programmer etc. Unfortunately, Computer Science isn’t a leaving cert subject so it’s hard to get a feel for it before you encounter it in University. I think that’s probably on reason the failure rate in first year is high ( well at least that was the perception when I was in University, it might have changed).
I went to UCC and I’m sure the majority of people over here in Vancouver have no idea about the calibre of students, quality of courses, projects etc. All they have to work off when hiring is what you have on your resume. I’m pretty sure when I got my first job in games at SEGA in the UK the University had almost nothing to do with it, it was mostly due to projects I had done in my spare time and graduation score.
If anything it’ll be the score you get on graduating that will have the most impact ( 1.1 degree, 2.1 etc, which is similar to most graduate positions). But even at that some uni’s are easier to get through than others so be expected to do a programming test to get the job and prove you didnt coast through doing "filler subjects".
Projects you do throughout the course will help you to get better a programming, maths etc. But ultimately it’ll be the work you do on your own that will really make you a good engineer.
I think you’ll find the majority of people on the board here who work in games probably didn’t do a game specific course and their course probably didn’t have many things related to games. They probably learned new languages, tech etc on the side or managed to work them into 3rd or final year projects. Nowadays there is so many ways for you to be able to demonstrate your skills; Unity, Unreal modding, XNA(will actually that one is dead now but still), open source projects etc.
To me it seems only a small percentage of people doing CS end up going into game ( may 1 or 2 in every graduation class, if even that). I think when I graduated in 2003 the only other person I ever heard of going into games from that CS department prior to me was a guy in 2001, before that there was no one. lol
Consequently, I’d imagine the majority of CS courses everywhere are geared towards where the majority of jobs are. So they have lots of focus on databases, networking, Java/C# (or whatever is the popular language at that time in the various industries), basic architecture, web design etc. After all these skills cover 90% of the jobs out there.
But in conclusion after you get your first job your University degree is really not too important, your references and performance in your previous role will determine whether you get your next job. Games is a small industry so often someone working at the place you apply to will know someone at your current work place and can verify if what you say is bullshit or not and regardless of your rep and experience level you will nearly always be asked to do a programming test in some capacity. If they don’t ask you to do one you should probably be weary of that company.
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People could say the same of Abertay V Cambridge in the UK, but we know where most of the games folks seem to come from (hint…not Cambridge – although I suppose I could be wrong there).
Aphra[/quote:23c969bd85]
haha, funny the last 2 games jobs I’ve had there was a bunch of guys from Oxford and Cambridge and 1 guy from Abertay. But I’m sure that’s definitely the exception to the rule ;)
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peter_B…
ah there you go….!
but I reckon it wasn’t the prestige of the college that got them the job…as you said above.
Aphra[/quote:212dd2b46f]
Not at all. They all passed the programming tests and had good experience and references.
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