So this is going to be an actual blog. With lots of QQ
Basically I got fucked out of the business school and now I don't know what I'm going to do.
When I was younger my dream was to become a comedian, its all i wanted to do. I got better and better until I was sure that I was at a level where if I went to California and performed often enough I could pick up an agent and start working my way up, ez pz. My parents, however, insisted that I got to college and shit, so I had to do something that wouldn't get in the way of comedy.
So i picked business. I had a loose plan that I would manage myself, after hearing about so many people losing so much money like Dane Cook and that boxer guy (not this one BoxeR. It was a rough plan, but good enough for me.
I grew up in college station my whole life, so I wanted to get out, which is why I picked North Texas to go to (also because of a girl who turned out to be a backstabbing whore, but that's beside the point). The school was great, classes were easy, and I finished my freshman year with like a 3.83 (3.8 first semester, 4.0 second), but I missed my friends who were graduating from High School and would be attending A&M back in college station, so I decided to transfer back home
which is where the clusterfuck happened.
May's Business School is relatively esteemed, so you can't just transfer right in, even with an almost 4.0 and recommendations. So I transferred into General Studies, which has a "fast track to business". Basically you take the classes they tell you to and make decent grades and you get in. However it was a rough first semester because my mom was in the middle of a big PUBLIC trial for some bullshit (don't worry we won the case, some cops can be assholes) so I had to miss a lot of classes, and even when I didnt studying was stressful and I was distracted so I didnt do so hot, getting 3 C's in one semester. Fuck.
I thought I could make it up second semester, all I had to do was make enough A's to offset the C's. Problem is that the business school is hard as shit. I made 2 A's, 3 B's.
Fuck.
And the Texas Education system is fucked, so my GPA didn't transfer AT ALL. I had 9 A's I could've used from North Texas, but they're all gone. All of them. The late nights I spend studying, the energy drinks, the missed parties, all of it was for absolutely nothing.
So now I'm in general studies with 70ish hours with no direction.
Please help me. TL knows this shit.
I want to do computer science but I suck at the internet. Bad. the general joke is that i'm too innocent for the internet, as Mystlord found out when trying to teach me how to pirate a video game when I asked him what "mounting" meant. But I'm smart as hell so I figure even if I don't have a natural understanding of wtfx going on, that's what college is for, learning shit.
So I think I can start CS cold turkey and be okay, but I'm basically only picking it because it has the word "computer" in it. I read the TL Manpower thread and saw that under the title COMPUTERS is more specific applications, like video game design, which is something I'd be interested in. But I really don't know where to start with something like that, or what skills I would need to do it. I plan on PM'ing Ideas or -fj because they're names I recognize, but honestly I don't even know enough to begin asking questions.
So if anyone has an opinion on the subject or could help me, i'd greatly appreciate it because I really have no idea what's going on right now. I'm just mass gaming to drive the panic out of my head.
TL:DR couldn't get into business school, now I want to do something with Computers. Computer Science comes to mind, or video game design. Good Idea? Any tips?
Well, i go video game design.. its pretty fun and all But you`ll probably just like me, end up with a class where 20 people play WoW and 10 plays pokémon and you are 1 of 3 that enjoys a good session of starcraft / cs.
Yeah I tried computer science (I use computers full time at work and hobbies) and I absolutely hated it. Didn't even last the first year. Its 7 top tier math classes (Calc 1-3, Discrete math 1-3) and a bunch of other bullshit you wont ever actually use. If you want to work with computers I wouldnt recommend computer science. It is programming and every programmer I've ever known is bald for a reason.
If I were you I'd try at a Community College. There are plenty of colleges you can transfer to that will be more than happy to take you based on the fact you've passed like all your classes. In most cases it really doesnt matter where you got your degree as long as you have the peice of paper. Community Colleges are cheap, offer all the same classes you'll take in your first 2 years at a university, and when you transfer to a university you go in as a Junior and on your diploma it says nothing about your Community College history.
It cracks me up when people are like 'I GOT REJECTED/KICKED OUT MY LIFE IS OVER'... no, it really isnt. You can pick up classes again and start over at any time. yeah you wasted some time and some money, get over it and try again.
On June 23 2010 02:44 HuskyTheHusky wrote: It cracks me up when people are like 'I GOT REJECTED/KICKED OUT MY LIFE IS OVER'... no, it really isnt. You can pick up classes again and start over at any time. yeah you wasted some time and some money, get over it and try again.
yeh it just sucks X_X but thats good tough love, I appreciate it
Being a pan handler is also a good career move if you look pathetic enough to get enough sympathy.
Life is about mistakes and if you are young enough it is a valuable life lesson to learn and just move on from. Chosing a career is a hard part of life, especially if you cannot do the career you had your heart set on.
On June 23 2010 02:39 Pawsom wrote: Computer Science has nothing to do with computers; at least how you view them now. It's basically a discrete mathematics degree.
agreed, but every computer programming job requires a computer science and/or electrical engineering degree.
I'm not clear on how your school works, but in my alma mater UC Berkeley, students in the first two years have to build up their grades and then "transfer" to the business school (Haas) in their junior year. It's similar to your school in that student with very high grades and achievements get in.
Of all my close friends, I only know one student that actually got in. All the others, ended up settling for Economics or a type of Social Science degree. Regardless of what they majored in, they are now pulling in 6k figures because they were able to find good entry level jobs and used their experience to find better ones.
Basically, college means shit compared to work experience. The CMO of my company has a fucking bachelors in painting (fine arts) and he's a millionaire. From your blog, it seems you really do care about the career you'll have. Just finish up your degree, whatever it it may be, and really focus on the career you'd want to have.
If you want to work in IT try learning some basic technical skills like handling SQL and HTML and picking up a programming language or two. Of course in the world of computers there are innumerable realms to explore too, like mobile computing, web and graphics design, networking administration, and dozens else. I wouldn't say a degree in CS/Engineering/Math/what have you would be entirely useless (I did some HR work for an IT consultancy and the vast majority of qualified professionals also sported a related degree), but a lot of your competitiveness will come from skills you hone outside the classroom.
Most of all, if you're willing to work your ass off for something, don't give up on it. This country (I'm assuming you live in the USA as your TL info states) is one of the best places for tenacity and effort to thrive.
On June 23 2010 02:39 Pawsom wrote: Computer Science has nothing to do with computers; at least how you view them now. It's basically a discrete mathematics degree.
agreed, but every computer programming job requires a computer science and/or electrical engineering degree.
I'm not clear on how your school works, but in my alma mater UC Berkeley, students in the first two years have to build up their grades and then "transfer" to the business school (Haas) in their junior year. It's similar to your school in that student with very high grades and achievements get in.
Of all my close friends, I only know one student that actually got in. All the others, ended up settling for Economics or a type of Social Science degree. Regardless of what they majored in, they are now pulling in 6k figures because they were able to find good entry level jobs and used their experience to find better ones.
Basically, college means shit compared to work experience. The CMO of my company has a fucking bachelors in painting (fine arts) and he's a millionaire. From your blog, it seems you really do care about the career you'll have. Just finish up your degree, whatever it it may be, and really focus on the career you'd want to have.
yeh its kinda the same except you can transfer in after your first year
so the students who took freshman level math, history, economics got to transfer in on those easy grades. whereas I lost all those easy grades and had to try and transfer in off of the 2nd year business classes I was taking
not saying I had the hardest time possible, but I had the hardest time possible
On June 23 2010 02:39 Pawsom wrote: Computer Science has nothing to do with computers; at least how you view them now. It's basically a discrete mathematics degree.
This, kind of. I just finished my first semester towards a bachelor degree in CS. Shitloads of math with some programming, both low and highlevel languages (fuck you, VHDL), and the general feel is that while it gets better towards the later semesters; it's still all of this shit you just know you'll never use.
It's even worse if you get a masters, cause that generally means even MORE math and physics.
Computer science takes a very certain personality to excel at. I mean, you have to want to spend hours and hours every day coming up with clever ways to tell computers what to do in an abstract fashion. Often, telling them what to do involves math, and understanding what computers can do involves computation theory (which is more math :D).
I'm an AI grad student personally, and love it. I also loved my undergrad in computer science.
Husky and broz0rs speaks the truth. Yeah, you might be a little behind, but keep your head up -- just 'cuz you're 2yrs behind your peers doesn't mean squat in the long-term. If you really want something -- you're gonna get it. But you're gonna have to want it .. and that means starting all the way at the bottom, if you have to.
I started out with a Physics major, turned into Psych, and then decided to go into Finance. Didn't get a single job interview, so I just took whatever I could get -- an internship at this 2-man company. My boss was seriously mental, and I had to start from stapling and getting coffee. But I worked my way up, and taught myself everything from scratch. I made sure I was 100% reliable to my boss, and put myself in situations where I could take on more and more responsibilities.
Eventually I was able to leave that job after 2.5 yrs, and landed into the perfect Finance job that I wanted. Sure my peers were able to land that job straight out of college -- but to tell you the truth, the gritty things that I learned in those hard 2.5 yrs, I'm glad I went through that. And the hell you're going to go through, working yourself out of this mess by your sweat and blood, you're gonna be glad for that too.
I've been thinking of going back to school to get a bachelor of CS, but I don't think it will be worth the pain/time/money. Right now I'm cruising on IT contracts on the Cisco Cert path.
I would LOVE to be in game design, but I figured that it's probably one of the most bloated hiring markets, so I want to make sure I have a good base job before I start looking into whether it will be an option.
computer science is a fucking pain in the ass, I know 2 guys that are studying in their last year and they have to do a lot of work the whole summer if they want to get their degree. Im in 4th year now and I have to say the 3rd year almost chocked me lol
If you're looking for a legitimate job that you're going to stick with, then I'd say Electrical Engineering is a good choice for a degree (I'm assuming that it's an undergraduate degree). You get paid well, and if that's a job you're going to be a vet in, your pay gets very nice $100,000+, and the jobs are relatively stable.
Since you said that your main job is going to be as a comedian, I'm not sure. Usually, you get degrees to prepare yourself for whatever career you're looking forward to, and you might even want a master's degree if you want to be reasonably prepared for a job. I'm sorry if I come across as harsh or rude (I don't mean to ^\\\^), but because you don't really need a degree of any kind for comedy, and since whatever degree you get is mostly just for satisfying your parents, getting a degree at this point seems just to be a waste of your money and your parents' money.
It's important to base your education around the job that you want, because (as my dad always told me) you'll definitely regret it if you get a degree just to do it, and you don't have much interest in that field. If what you're interested in is really computers, then I'd say Electrical Engineering is the way to go, but you'll really have to like it.
About Computer Science: Comp Sci is more programming and high-level languages. Computer engineers are more likely to work on low-level languages and have to worry about architectures and stuff. The Comp Sci majors don't learn a lot of C (a programming language, for the uninitiated) and about hardware too much, but Computer Engineering majors do.
Undergraduate business isn't really the most ufeful degree. If you want to be an entrepreneur, you can just start without training (or just take accounting classes at a CC), and if u want to do anything else, you have to relearn everything during your MBA.
I just transferred OUT of a specialized video game design program after realizing a few things.
A. The program gave you background in all aspects of game design ie. Programming, Graphics, Storyline. But gave you no expertise that you can't obtain from a specialized course ie. Computer Science, 3D modelling etc.
B. The industry is hard as fuck to get into. And if you don't you don't have a 'useful' degree to fall back on and apply to the same concepts you know but in a different field.
On June 23 2010 04:06 Inkarnate wrote: B. The industry is hard as fuck to get into. And if you don't you don't have a 'useful' degree to fall back on and apply to the same concepts you know but in a different field.
Is it really?
I have a lot of friends in the videogame industry, and most of them came from networking with the Bemani scene. Some came from networking in the fighting game scene. And a few came from working as a low level tester at Square-Enix.
I wouldn't even call it networking since I wasn't actively looking for videogame contacts, we just played the same games.
I can only imagine how easy it would be if you attended E3, GDC, worked on projects over the internet, worked on modding, had an actual portfolio, etc.
Oh and some of these people I've met don't even have college degrees, many worked their way up from localization projects and actively studied Japanese.
And it's not even the industry I'm in, I work as a government engineer. =)
Just get a Specialization in Computer Science degree if you aren't sure what you want to do, that way you won't risk backing yourself into a corner (like with a specialized video game stream).
I'm entering my final year of my Comp Sci degree in the fall, so here's my take (I have been working as a full time software dev for the past year and a bit so I have a good amount of work experience too):
The first year or so is boring. Really boring... but it has it's purpose. The fundamentals you learn will apply for the rest or your life.
The non-CS courses you have to take (maths mostly) are there to make sure you at least have some rudimentary problem solving skills. Just power through them, you should be able to cut back later if you want. They should rarely get used in your other courses unless you specifically take something like Numeric Methods (fun courses actually ).
Even if you think the CS courses you take are useless, pay attention and work at them. Not only for the grades, but for the principles you will learn. I hate VHDL with a fiery passion, but even when working with it in a hardware class I learned things that apply to other languages and programming in general. Specifically with VHDL, the importance of good documentation and planning before you dive in and start writing code. And again, it will improve your problem solving skills (IMO, the most important thing for a programmer to have).
A lot of people who love computers hate Comp Sci. But I find it extremely rewarding. If you can power through the boring first year or 2, you may find you truly come to enjoy it.
On June 23 2010 04:06 Inkarnate wrote: I just transferred OUT of a specialized video game design program after realizing a few things. A. The program gave you background in all aspects of game design ie. Programming, Graphics, Storyline. But gave you no expertise that you can't obtain from a specialized course ie. Computer Science, 3D modelling etc.
B. The industry is hard as fuck to get into. And if you don't you don't have a 'useful' degree to fall back on and apply to the same concepts you know but in a different field.
My $.02 on video game design programs.
that sounds like it might just be a problem with the program you were taking? at my school (georgia tech) you have a lot of options to be able to learn more about different aspects of specialization. Ultimately though the classes only teach you so much and it's up to you to start learning and gaining experience by yourself (working your own projects on your own time).
monion, do you still want to be a comedian? if so it sounds like you should just transfer back to your old school and finish up there, and then start your path to comedianism.
if you want to get into videogames, what do you want to do? programming, design, production?
Also, for such specific/important/detailed college questions, you guys would probably be better off asking on a forum dedicated to academics, for obvious reasons.
I'm not saying our TL community is stupid, but because most TLers are too focused on stuff like progaming and korean pop, it's not likely that much of the TL community is intensely focused on higher education and *that* studious. Try College Confidential or something, and register an account just to ask your question.
why don't you study something that facilitates comedy, something that puts you into study of people or society. English, Mass Comm, Sociology.... some social science or liberal art.
You won't refine any people skills studying CS... you'll probably lose some.
If your MBTI personality type (yeah, for what it's worth...) is not INTJ, you should seriously reconsider computer science. Especially reconsider if you're not a J. The correct personality type or something close to it seems to be a necessary but not sufficient condition for liking computer science. Liking computers or video games does not equate to liking computer science.
At least, that's what people tell me. For the record, I'm an INTJ electrical engineering grad student, and I'm pretty sure that I would not have liked CS. I'm not saying it's a bad field or anything, just that a lot of people naturally get weeded out because it turns out that it was not the right thing for them.
On June 23 2010 04:06 Inkarnate wrote: I just transferred OUT of a specialized video game design program after realizing a few things. A. The program gave you background in all aspects of game design ie. Programming, Graphics, Storyline. But gave you no expertise that you can't obtain from a specialized course ie. Computer Science, 3D modelling etc.
B. The industry is hard as fuck to get into. And if you don't you don't have a 'useful' degree to fall back on and apply to the same concepts you know but in a different field.
My $.02 on video game design programs.
that sounds like it might just be a problem with the program you were taking? at my school (georgia tech) you have a lot of options to be able to learn more about different aspects of specialization. Ultimately though the classes only teach you so much and it's up to you to start learning and gaining experience by yourself (working your own projects on your own time).
monion, do you still want to be a comedian? if so it sounds like you should just transfer back to your old school and finish up there, and then start your path to comedianism.
if you want to get into videogames, what do you want to do? programming, design, production?
well ya but I'd like to keep if more of a hobby, something I do on the side, rather than the focus of my career, cuz it's so wishy washy
I'd like to do either programming or design, but I don't know if A&M supplements that kind of thing or if i'd have to go somewhere else like ITT tech or something X_X
On June 23 2010 03:05 Chill wrote: Can't you go back to North Texas and finish your business degree? That seems like the best option here.
mmm I dont wanna leave
i havent taken enough business classes to make it so I'm so deep on that track that I cant get out, and i wasnt really that dedicated to that major to begin with, I just kinda picked it after dropping the "get famous quick" strategy
that probably would be the best idea, to go to another business school, but my family's here and my friends, so I'd just rather not leave. which sounds dumb when I say it like that
Yea I read your details. I guess I inferred your OP as more of a "How should I move forward in life?" post and not the "What should I study?" post that it is. Sorry
You've got to ask yourself: What are you good at, what do you like and what do you want to be good at? You mention CS, but do you know what that entails? Go to your uni's website and find a course list for their CS degree and see if you see yourself doing well in them. CS is funny like that, I know a lot of really smart people who get a glazed look and start to drool when trying to do 'computer stuff', and likewise people I wouldn't have guessed would be good at anything take to it like a natural.
I guess what I'm saying is, don't just pick something because it seems like a good idea. Actually try to determine if it IS a good idea before you waste another year of your life (This is coming from experience).
On June 23 2010 06:31 RisingTide wrote: You've got to ask yourself: What are you good at, what do you like and what do you want to be good at? You mention CS, but do you know what that entails? Go to your uni's website and find a course list for their CS degree and see if you see yourself doing well in them. CS is funny like that, I know a lot of really smart people who get a glazed look and start to drool when trying to do 'computer stuff', and likewise people I wouldn't have guessed would be good at anything take to it like a natural.
I guess what I'm saying is, don't just pick something because it seems like a good idea. Actually try to determine if it IS a good idea before you waste another year of your life (This is coming from experience).
yea thats kinda the point of the blog
if CS is really math-y then I could definitely handle that, match being my strong suit
i just dont wanna do anything involving science. T_T
Dang I'm sorry to hear that Morrell... I'm just wondering but, what kind of a gpa did you need to transfer into May's business school? Cuz for me, I just needed a 2.5 on my overall gpa and my cbk gpa to get transferred into Industrial Engineering department. I'm surprised the 2 A's and the 3 B's didn't help boost your 3 C's but I'm guessing you need a really high gpa. Were you trying to get into finance? or marketing? or accounting??
well from what I understand by having a lot of CS majors for friends at my school, CS is just programming. programming involves a lot of math and a lot of abstractness. i really fucking hate programming but I have to learn it for my major (game design). Does your school offer CS? what about strictly game-related majors (assuming you still want to do it)?
if you want to be a programmer, it will be better to just stick to CS since that degree with be just as good (as far as degrees go) in the game industry but is also applicable to other industries. but I think the most important part of getting a job in the game industry is just experience. having a good portfolio i think is far and away the most important part.
Programming is logic (i.e. discrete math), I actually dunno why they tack on all the high level math classes. (in general college, in engineering program it's kinda obvious) What exactly is it you want to do? You don't really go into specifics on what you like. CS major is either writing code all day/looking at code all day/optimizing or testing code all day or solving issues all day. Server issues, system issues whatever. That usually develops to either writing more code all day/looking at more code all day/making sure the people that work for you test code correctly add day or becoming a sys admin or network admin and manage more issues all day. On the other hand if you want to play models, create stages for games or something, that's not CS. I mean, yes someone has to write the code underneath everything, but there are art degrees for video game design and stuff.
If you like design more than writing code/making sure computers/networks don't blow up, I'd take a look at other degrees not CS. Look in the art school or general school for design degrees since I think a lot of those jobs require you to have a portfolio coming out of college, not as sure though.
Sorry to hear that Mays rejected you and I know how big a pain in the ass it is to transfer credits over from another school. Do you still plan on staying in A&M or are you planning to go elsewhere? If you are interested in staying and want to possibly look into the Comp Sci/Engineering department, I have a few friends that are juniors/seniors that would be willing to help you if you have any questions. Hopefully everything will work out for you and you can remain at Texas A&M
Im sure everyone has explained that CS isnt what you really think it is. Its a total pain in the ahole, a lot of work but only possible to go through is if you self-study and have interest. Its a lot of Math and hardass Physics, you are better off taking CNT or something.
edit: Im a 1st year CS Major, its hilariously easy at first but it gets difficult fast when you dont get used to programming and figure out the terms. I actually took off 1 semester to take the minor courses such as the few very liberal arts classes and electives that count. Now all I have left is many math courses and a couple of physics classes, I'll regret it later since I enjoy this 50/50 as of right now.
I don't have any advice but does anyone know any active places or message boards to talk about education and career-related stuff?
I'm mainly looking for long-term advice about career-related matters. Many of the places I've searched for aren't that active and are relatively superficial in terms of depth. It would be nice to have a place where you can get the experience and advice from professionals in their careers.
Why is CS a pain in the ass? I know a bunch of classmates who enjoy it. I like how you don't have to memorize that much - everything comes out of the logical necessity of the architecture, or from "it's easiest to do it this way."
CS as much a "math thing" as is structural engineering: you're crunching numbers using math, maybe, but you're doing something with it.
As somebody earlier in the thread wrote, don't go into CS unless you have an INSANE ability for math, Engineering is just as good if not better as a career path towards programming, but beware the fact that you need to have a specialization or two in your programming knowledge, no sense having generalist capabilities in multiple languages if you can't grasp two or three completely. I have a business degree now, but no job, so you're in a better position of having the chance to change your degree. ROFL
Next best thing from a business school degree is economics. There is a specific reason you want to get a busineess school degree. There are many companies that only hire bschool canidates due to their professional demeanour and formal business training.
However, if you just take economics and recruit hardcore with companies, then a business degree isnt nessesary. I met alot of fellow interns and fulltime hires that werent in business programs.
Start looking for internships and polish up interviewing skills. Get that resume polished as well. Good luck man.
I'm a CS major in my 4a term at UWaterloo (from what I understand, a good computer science school) and it's chill as fuck for the most part. No high level math required (at least not for what I'm doing - though I can see how some of the stuff would be useful, I'm just not built for it and we don't have to take those classes).
I had to take Calc I + II, Linear Algebra, Discrete (?) Algebra (TBH I have no idea what algebras I took, but its the first 2). They were hard as fuck but that's because I took advanced sections, and basically didn't do any homework and partied (1st year troubles lol). Got 50's on my calc II and alg II. These are first year courses. Then for my degree (Bachelor of CS) I don't have to take any more calc/alg.
But then it's been mostly straightforward. Not much math other than a intro to combinatorics/graph theory course which was a great course and IMO pretty easy (but other apparently the business students all do bad in it), and very useful. I had to take a logic course for computer science but it wasn't really "math" math, it was CS math. You have to take 2 stats courses in second year, but I basically learned the first stats course in high school (90% basic probability) and the second one was not that hard either since it's just memorizing distributions and stuff.
The rest have been learning computer science concepts (stuff like net working, distribution, HCI, databases, etc) some of which require alot of programming, some of which are more answer-type, most of which have both. I personally enjoy programming alot. I don't do any high level math or anything. The only thing that comes close to math might be the few algorithms class I've taken, and a numerical computation class (which was optional).
I mean, sure, some courses are hard (it is university), but it's basically 100% applicable, so I don't know what abstract stuff other people learn (maybe AI courses and adv. graph theory? Compiler algorithms - that's still applicable.. That's heavy stuff that I find people do grad studies for so...). The only abstract stuff I can think of that I learn are my algorithms classes (200, 300 and 400 level) and design patterns, both of which are the most useful things I've ever learned probably.
TBH if you've never done any programming try it out on your own - if you like it alot but aren't cut out for high level maths, perhaps think of doing college instead (I think they're called community colleges in US). You might have already come to a conclusion based on what I read, but as another CS major I thought alot of the opinions here just don't jive with what I've done. But then again this is Canada and we're more chill than americans for the most part and UWaterloo's CS department is part of the Math Faculty (which I learn is uncommon), so perhaps we do things differently because of that - I don't know, I can only speculate.
Hopefully this is helpful, but as I type this I feel more and more like it's not. =/ I've gone too far to stop now though.
So the solution to your problem is to move to Canada and come to UW (we offer business minors for CS majors as well)
jk (I read your other posts so I know you don't want to move)
On June 23 2010 07:53 MaRiNe23 wrote: what kind of a gpa did you need to transfer into May's business school? ... Were you trying to get into finance? or marketing? or accounting??
needed a 3.0, which would've been easy sauce if I had my freshman year grades, but with just my 200/300 level classes it was a 2.87 X_X I was gonna do the PPA where you get your major in accounting and masters in finance
On June 23 2010 08:22 holy_war wrote: Do you still plan on staying in A&M or are you planning to go elsewhere?
I'll only stay if you come out of hiding and hang out! But ya I plan on staying here, and I seriously might hit you up sometime for your friends help if it wouldn't be too much trouble. I really like asking questions in person so that would be really awesome.
On June 23 2010 12:57 King K. Rool wrote: Hopefully this is helpful, but as I type this I feel more and more like it's not. =/ I've gone too far to stop now though.
extremely helpful man, getting the scoop on what your experience was like just adds to the building blocks of my thoughts. ty so much for the post
I know the post was vague and I didn't really have a focal point, but that's because this is everything I had in my head, I really didnt have a direction, but all your posts from different areas of experience was exactly what I needed
WHAT I"VE LEARNED
1) Turns out computer science is really mathy, which ends up being great because I really enjoy math and the best part of business that I enjoyed was the math of Accounting, working with numbers to balance accounts and such, and I grasp math really easily (5 on my AP Calc AB Test in HS) so if I pick CS it should fit nicely with my personality
2) Game design is more artsty than Computer Science, and only a few schools offer it, and it seems like you need to know people in the industry to try and wedge your way in
3) Both options require a strong portfolio with great experience, so I need to start working on my resume early, rather than only focusing on grades
This is infinitely more knowledge than I had before, even if its really basic. I'll use this basis when I go see an advisor this week to determine what school to apply for and what classes to take specifically
i do comp sci it kicks ass. i don't know what some of these ppl are talking about. of course u have to do electives and shit but u prly have all those credits. i had to do calc 1-2 and a discrete math class but really that shits ez. and they discrete math was tied to programming so it was cool.
i'll be a junior next fall semester and i'm basically taking only programming classes now. it owns. programming is so fun u just hack code and u can basically make/do what ever the fuck u want. cs for life!
You don't need quite a portfolio for CS early, but of course having something is better than not, especially if it's something nice and self contained that you can bring with you to interviews for interns and stuff like that.
If you really want to be a comedian than why not go to a fine arts/ performance acting program? That seems a lot more relevant than just a general business program Definitely don't do CS lol, I guarantee you'd hate it. If you really really want to be in the business program (I can't imagine why you would, but whatever) then just email all the professors asking if you can take their classes, and eventually they'll let you do it.
Game design programs always seem not as much as you want and then schools that advertise that they have game design programs usually seem so shady. lol. I'm looking into CS as well. Probably going to take an intro class in my Spring Semester and see if I like it.
On June 23 2010 15:32 Alou wrote: Game design programs always seem not as much as you want and then schools that advertise that they have game design programs usually seem so shady. lol. I'm looking into CS as well. Probably going to take an intro class in my Spring Semester and see if I like it.
yeh I got the same feeling. Its just so "if you love games then you'll LOVE doing this", which may or may not be true, but I'd like a more solid presentation
On June 23 2010 15:32 Alou wrote: Game design programs always seem not as much as you want and then schools that advertise that they have game design programs usually seem so shady. lol. I'm looking into CS as well. Probably going to take an intro class in my Spring Semester and see if I like it.
yeah "game design" seems like a scam to take money from people who like video games but don't want to be programmers or artists. Video game companies hire people who are experienced at programming and/or computer animation, and occasionally they'll give them a job as designers. They don't need people with a degree in game design.
There are some really good game design programs but like I mentioned earlier, a "Game Design" degree doesn't make you any more qualified in a field than someone with for example CS experience if you are working on game code.
EPT
BoxeR. It was a rough plan, but good enough for me. 
But you`ll probably just like me, end up with a class where 20 people play WoW and 10 plays pokémon and you are 1 of 3 that enjoys a good session of starcraft / cs.
