Guildhall, Digi-pen are no more or less useful for a future in the game industry than a CS degree. The problem is that they have a high ratio of shitty grads versus those that work hard. So is just about any CS program I've heard of. This unfortunately means some studios blacklist some of these types of schools. As one of the Fullsail grads that busted my ass the entire time, I'm now employed full time at Pandemic, and am loving it. Meanwhile there were a number of classmates in the associates program(not in the bachelors when I went through) that did the minimum to get through. Doing the minimum will not get you into the industry.

The most important aspect of your school of choice is that you bust your ass and do the best you can. When you graduate you need to have an impressive demo or project that shows as clearly as possible your skill and desire in your area of choice(AI, Graphics, etc). Having that will trump whatever school is listed on your resume. My FPS bot project(in my sig) essentially got me the job I have now. It demonstrates passion, drive, and long term commitment in your preferred area to have a large-ish scale project to show and talk about. Just about my entire interview process was talking about it.

You might want to read all the articles and comments on this page.

This article in particular.

Interesting quote:

Quote:

I too graduated from Full Sail. I was in the class with Gabriel Cantres, the author of the "Fourteen Months at Full Sail" articles.

Let me be as clear as possible :

FULL SAIL IS NOT WORTH THE MONEY.

Before going to Full Sail I had a degree in Computer Information Systems and worked in the IT industry for 4 years. The economy was taking a dive and many lay offs were happening. I had always wanted to develop games and that is why I got into computers in the first place. So I looked into Full Sail and thought they would teach me game development.

This is one of the worst mistakes of my life.

I wish I was being melodramatic, but I'm not.
Something Full Sail does not tell you in the quick tours is that after six months, if you want to quit, you still owe the FULL tutition. One of my fellow classmates realized that Full Sail was not for him. He too had a degree from another university, but by the time he was fed up enough to leave it was past the six month mark. So he owed the entire tutition. Even if he had left.

Another fact that Full Sail will not tell you up front is that the game industry pays badly. There is all this talk about the game industry only wants people who are passionate about games. What they mean is people who are willing to work for half as much pay as programmers outside the game industry while working twice the hours.

Make sure to look at the Game Developer Annual Salary survey and then look at a website like salary.com. Compare what programmers make in the game industry and outside of it.

Now I'm not saying that working in the game industry is bad. My brother is currently a developer in a Chicago based company. What I am saying is that a degree from Full Sail does not give you the opportunity to move out of the game industry. If you have a computer science degree from a major university you have the option of working in or out of the game industry. With a Full Sail degree your only option is the game industry.

That is if you can get a job in the game industry at all. A Full Sail degree DOES NOT get you the job or sometimes even a foot in the door. When I graduated, Full Sail did not get me interviews and did not seem to have a clue how to.

Sometimes I see people bad mouthing Full Sail and you get the sense that the writer did not apply themselves or do well at the school. After reading those kind of comments I always wonder if it was Full Sail or their lack of effort. I am not one of those students. I excelled while I was a Full Sail and my teams final project was accepted into the 2003 Student Showcase for the Independent Games Festival (www.igf.com) at the annual Game Developer Conference in California. Out of 64 student projects from around the world (some were from Europe) 10 were choosen and our project was one of them. Even after spending a week in California showing my game to hundreds of people from around the game industry, I still had trouble finding a job. Eventually I returned to the regular IT industry.

The whole experience has left me regretfull and saddled with student loans that will take me another 10 - 15 years to pay off.

Currently I am a application developer for Bank of America. I have friends who are still in the game industry and they say the pay is low and the hours are too long. I work 40 hours a week and get paid twice as much as my friends who are still in the industry. I'm not saying this to brag, but to illustrate that the game industry requires you to live and breath your job, for little pay.

For people who are looking to go to Full Sail :

If you want to be a game programmer, go to a real university and get a degree in Computer Science.
As you study if you still want to do games focus your study toward Computer Graphics.

If you want to be a game designer, start reading and studying about games. Go to school and study history and writing and art.
Pick up the book "Rules of Play", it is an excellent book. It costs about $60, but that is worth it compared to $70,000 in loans (that is full sail tuition plus the loans needed for living expenses).

I hope these words helped those who read it. Full Sail is not a way into the game industry.

Full Sail is a waste of time and money.

I'm a 23 year old graduate of Digipen, which is a similar program to what full-sail offers. From what I've heard from Full-sail grads, and my own experiences at Digipen I would say that, of the two, Digipen offers more foundation in computer science and operates at a less accelerated pace -- Unless its changed, the typcial Digipen BS program degree is 4 years, while Fullsail pushes for 3. As other's will no doubt say, neither program is as theory/fundamentals based as a traditional, university CS degree -- Though, through my experience, most detractors do underestimate the amount of theory/fundamental learning that does indeed take place, at least in the case of Digipen. I believe that this stereo-type comes, in part, because there are those graduates of these programs who did not see the fundamentals/theory they learned as usefull or relevant and did not take this information to heart.


There are prejudices both for and against graduates of Game-Programming courses like Digipen, Fullsail, Guildhall, etc. Some studios specifically seek these grads, other studios literally black-list them. It has a lot to do with corporate culture and previous experiences with grads from these programs, both good and bad. I've heard of responses ranging from "We love Digipen, we're always looking to hire them when we can get ahold of one." to "We'll never hire a(nother) Digipen grad!" to "It only matters what you can show us." to even "It doesn't matter where you come from, because we're going to have to completely re-train you anyhow." The only common thread I've heard rumblings of, is to absolutely avoid ITT/Devry, and for tuition that matches either Digipen/full-sail, or a high-quality university's tuition, why wouldn't you?

I presume that you're located in or near Florida since that's the location of the other schools you've looked at, which is presumably the reason you've selected Fullsail over Digipen, Guildhall, or other Game Degree offerings. Ignoring the traditional University route for a moment, you would do well to consider these and other options. While it can be an important factor (closeness to family and friends) geography should not be the primary deciding factor in selecting your route to higher education.

You might well consider a dual-degree. Digipen, for instance, now offers a Master's Degree in game development, which is largely aimed at post-graduate students from Universities. For the cost of a 4 year degree from either Digipen or Fullsail, you could easily afford a 4 year degree from a University, followed by a year or two pursuing an MS in Game Development from Digipen. Those Digipen grads who have also graduated from University are always extremely sought-after, and typically recieve better offers from larger, more established studios.

There certainly are a few realities to be addressed in regards to the game industry and what a game degree is worth outside of it. Firstly, what you've heard here about game industry hours/salary is largely true -- particularly of entry-level positions. Game industry workers are often expected to work longer hours than their non-game counterparts, for far less salary. Its not uncommon for an average entry-level programmer to pull in 35,000-45,000 per year while working 50+ hours per week in the game industry, while outside the industry you can generally expect to be earning 45,000-60,000 for the same experience, and only working 40 hours a week. Often times, the benefits package is also better outside the game industry.

My experience has been that non-game gigs have offered 25% more than game gigs. The job I'm working currently pays nearly double the lowest offer I recieved from a game studio. As you might suspect, I'm working outside the game industry currently, despite my Digipen degree. Personally, I have not yet found my Digipen degree to be a detriment to my job-seeking efforts outside the games industry, but I do know of other's who have had difficulty making that transition.

On the other hand, a well-educated and driven game graduate can find financial success even in the games industry. A buddy of mine from Digipen took a job at Bungie fresh out of school for 66,000 per year. While he was increadibly smart and had become an excelent programmer, he had no university experience nor had he even programmed before coming to digipen. He proved his worth by beating out ~200 other applicants, including game industry veterans, for the position. The process included several rounds of interviews, white-board coding, problem solving, and timed, take-home programming evercises.


Ultimately, you, and only you, are the one who decides what you get out of your higher education. It is an unfortunate reality that there are those who will look down on a game degree, no matter how good you are, but it is their loss if they did not take the time to properly evaluate you as a candidate. If you really are worth your salt as a developer, you will have no problem finding work elsewhere, and can take solice in the fact that you will be working for one of their competitors.

Education is not a means to an end, it is a means to a beginning. Your education should neither begin nor end with your college career, it is a life-long process. To be truly good at anything, particularly any kind of engineering, you should always strive to understand both new and old techniques, to hone your understanding of things you believe you know, to always be looking for a better solution. "Done" is very rarely as good as it should be; Edison didn't stop with his first bulb, I doubt that Bach never revised his musical pieces. They were enthrawled by their persuits, reveling in the details and minutia of the task at hand, as it provided deeper understanding and ultimately the means to create something better.

No matter where you go, you must approach it as an opportunity to gain knowlege and to learn how to learn. It is not simply a quest for a magical piece of paper which proves your competancy in some way, and which is supposed to open many doors unatainable by mere mortals. Education is a weapon you wield in order to tackle new and bigger challenges, gaining more knowlege and understanding. A dragon riden into battle against new and more fierce dragons. Everything you have learned in life up to this point has served as foundation for something else you've learned. Only a fool thinks this should change once they've graduated from college. Only a fool thinks thinks that any end to learning other than death is acceptable.

To refrain from further hyperbole, what this means in practical terms is that you are the one who can, and must, improve and expand upon his formal education, no matter the source. If you take up University, you would do well to study hard and to apply your knowlege in an area that interests you (programing games, for instance). If you take up a Game Degree, you would do equally well to recognize the importance of fundamentals, taking special care of the opportunity to learn them formally, and to take it upon yourself to fill the gaps that may exist in the curiculum. The most successful grads of any program are those that take time to pursue the mastery of their craft. They are the ones who excel and are not happy with simply getting by.

[Edited by - ravyne2001 on April 24, 2007 6:42:57 PM]