College Bound

[abukii]

Woot...so its official, I am in college for Video Game Development. I cant believe how fast this school got me in. 2 days!! I am really, REALLY stoked. Pretty nervous as today is my first day and all...and I hate math lol. So, for the first quarter its the basics-- Algebra, English and Human Relations. after that I get right into coding, animation, QA, etc. Ive spoken to someone in the course and he says its a fantastic course. We learn tons!! It seems my school (New England Institute of Technology) has taken a page from Naughty Dog-- the entire course is a team effort, less the testing, but all of our developments are done in groups of 2-4. Pretty awesome!! Schooling puts a damper on my Comic Con presence (for dev kits) but its worth it imho. Cheers!!

[SaturnReturn]

Good luck. It sounds really good. Group projects can be great, as long as you're in a good group. Some people just take advantage of hard workers and do nothing themselves.

I remember in my final year project, that was the case. We had a peer marking scheme, through which some of the marks were divided up between the group. I think I gave one member a very low mark on the last assessment of the year. The only input from this person was a minor amount of terribly written text, and a minor amount of impeccably written, but straight up plagiarised, text. After being found out the first time, it happened again. I pointed out to other group members that it looked quite good and may have been plagiarised. They laughed at first but, sure enough, there it was, on the internet - a direct carbon copy. This was particularly annoying after I'd stayed up on one occasion for almost 3 days straight to get a piece of work done, which almost everyone else pretty much ignored. So I think I awarded this person a 0.5 out of 5 or something, just for managing to stay alive and write their own name - had to make up for the average marks I gave earlier in the year where I was feeling kind. I think it still worked out at more than they deserved. If I'd been allowed to re-submit my marks I would have. Plagiarism like that just puts the work of the whole group in danger. They did checks for it, and if it hadn't been identified prior to submission, then the whole group would probably have received a big fat zero for the work. At least, that's how it was supposed to go for individually submitted work. Who knows exactly what would actually have happened...

Anyway, don't let anyone take advantage, and don't be too trusting of anyone - there are some real lazy people out there who just don't appreciate education. Hopefully you end up in a group with interested and hard-working individuals. I'm looking forward to seeing some of your work in the future. :+ Maths is great though, what's not to love?

[Lance]

Uh... logarithm tables? ;) I'm glad we don't need those things anymore. Back when I was a kid, most of your time was not spent on learning the concept and how it fits with everything else, but spent on table lookups on the pages of a printed book. blech
Scientific calculators rescued us so that we can learn quickly instead of grind slowly.

[andy]

I'm doing a course in games development myself in college at the moment. :) It's probably not as advanced as what you will be doing because I think your college is the equivalent to our university, and I don't think we do any coding or math on our course. It really is good fun though, I'm loving it and I'm sure you will too. :D If it has any arty stuff in it, I would really invest in a graphics tablet. It's made work so much easier and quicker to do on the computer, and means, when I have animations to do, I can animate straight into flash, whereas others have to either scan in things, or move each body part individually. Wish you good luck in it, I'm sure you'll love it. :)

[abukii]

Thank you so much for the friendly gestures, guys :)

Day 1- Algebra- Im alive :P lol

As for courses, lets see if I can break this down:
Q1
Intro to Game Programming
Digital Graphics
Intro to Game Dev
Q2
Intermediate Game Programming
Intro to 2-D Game Programming
Game Design
Q3
Advanced Game Programming
Game Arts
Game Persistence
Technical Math
Q4
API Programming
Character Modeling
MOD (Modding(PC))
Physics
Q5
Internet Game Development
Intro to Asst. Capstone Project (<<no clue)
Algorithms and Data Structure
Technical Math II
Q6
Game Architecture
Adv. Intrawebz Game Development
Associate Capstone Project
Portfolio Dev. (<< meh)

Thats just the Associates degree...Im going for my Bachelors as well...theres tons more, but Ill cross that bridge if and when need be.

*WOOT!!!!*

[SaturnReturn]

Uh... logarithm tables?

I saw something like this in a museum once. It wasn't a log table though, it was a log ruler I think, or at least that seemed to be what my Dad was trying to say - very curious indeed.

[Lance]

That was a slide rule, a calculator that matches inputs on a logarithmic scale to give you the answer. It was replaced by digital electronics. Gratefully. But the slide rule was really very ingenious.

[ACE-FLO]

Yo Abukii, man I just see this thread!!! So happy for you mate... I know you always wanted to do this, like a dream coming true :) :rock

[abukii]

Thanks, ACE, but more like something I have to do at this point LoL...So much going on and I ain't gettin' any younger.

So week one went pretty well. Algebra is slowly but surely coming back to me, my Human Relations in the Workplace class is great, and I have my first English class today. Cant wait for March to get going on the Technical programs :)

[ACE-FLO]

Sounds great mate! I know what you mean about 'not getting any younger' - but you still got the beans to 'make it happen' and that's something eh? :)

So, these classes you are taking now are part of the course but not very technical, why is that? I was kinda expecting it all to be rather technical from the offset... but with so many modules to study, so much to learn - is it a case of doing some pre-ed to see if students are up to the level of math and english required from them when submitting essays? or something else?

The techy stuff begins in March eh? guess that's the part you're waiting for isn't it? ;) :rock

[abukii]

Well, sort of. I pre-tested to gain entrance. January- March, I take the basic courses that I need in order to graduate. Think of them as the pre requisites. These pre requisite courses free up my schedule for the technical courses. There fore, I am not taking 7 classes a day @ 1.5 hours per class and commuting 2 hours each way. Thats a long day! The way they do their scheduling is rather good, imho. So for now, I attend classes 6 days a week, but only 1 class per day. Come March, I will take all of my introductory to: classes and become a full time student. If you think about it, its rather well thought out. Folks starting in March will take all of their Introductory [Technical] courses as well as their pre requisite courses all at the same time...Id rather do it now, ya dig? :)