I know there are a good few game audio legends on this forum - it's the pros that I'd really like to hear from today. Also would love to hear from those of you who are self-employed in the game or audio industries.



I completed my bachelors degree and am now half way through my honours year, but I feel like I want to drop out. I've been absolutely killing myself over this decision for months. What I hope to gain from your responses is some idea of the difference between an unclassified bachelors degree and an honours degree in both the games and audio industries. I'm more interested in being self-employed presently, but the decision to complete the degree would be based on the doors that it will open for me in terms of employment.

Just to give a little background on my thoughts, I think that I could achieve more in terms of knowledge, skills, and portfolio content through developing my own personal projects than I could through completing my honours degree (and honours project). I feel highly motivated to get started on my own projects right away whereas my university work makes me feel quite demotivated in contrast. My own projects would include building a website for my work, creating a music/sfx pack for game audio (to be sold through Unreal and Unity stores), at least one DAW plugin (to be developed for Reason but possibly in other formats), and indie games (longer term projects). For the purposes of this conversation, please assume that my personal project work will be to a high standard! My thoughts are that in undertaking these personal projects successfully that I would have a pretty good portfolio that would make up for my lack of honours classification. 99% of people I've asked advise me to finish the degree to be on the safe side, but I've never felt that any of these people really knew my industries or the demand for practical skills, showreels and creative passion. Subsequently I doubt myself because 99% people are telling me something I don't agree with; it's hard to tell whether I'm being blind to a bigger picture or not... Still, it seems the most popular argument I'm given in favour of finishing the degree is that "I'm nearly there - it's only another 4 months", but to that I say it's an entire thesis that will take up all my time and energy for the next 4 months; it won't benefit me to do the thesis anymore than being able to say "Hey employers, I have an honours degree!" will.

So if you were an employer, would you want to see my name next to an honours degree, or next to real products, or both? Am I going to mess up my life by dropping out?

The purpose of your post is to figure out whether you should finish the degree you're THIS CLOSE to finishing. YOU SHOULD FINISH THE DEGREE.

Aha, so you agree with the 99%?

To answer you, that's sort-of correct. The purpose of this post is to find out if, and precisely how it matters if I don't have an honours degree in these industries. As I say, I may be 4 months from completion, but I still have essentially ALL the work to do. All I've completed of this year is a video production module and an advanced game audio module. I'm proposing that if I drop out I could spend my time doing more meaningful work and in 4 months time I would be more capable in these industries than if I'd completed the degree.

I want to drop out, but I can barely find a soul who doesn't automatically advise that I finish it. Many of my fellow students really want degrees and that's why they went to university, but my attitude has always been very different. I only ever cared about learning what I needed to learn to be able to bring my ideas to life. I admired this attitude in myself for the most part, but that admiration has never been reciprocated by anyone else and now my faith in it is being tested pretty hard.

4 months is a very short amount of time, considering you'll be able to put it on your resume for your entire life.

It's easy to spend 4 months working on personal projects that you enjoy doing. And odds are, in the course of your life, finding the free time to develop your skills won't be difficult either. It is hard to face that thesis and get your degree. Show future employers that you can do something hard and see it to completion.

Also, employers intend on paying you for the work they want you to do not the work that you want to do. What conclusions will they draw reading your resume, before you have any chance to explain, when it shows you didn't finish your degree?

> 99% of people I've asked advise me to finish the degree to be on the safe side, but I've never felt that any of these people really knew my industries or the demand for practical skills, showreels and creative passion.

For the employer it is easy enough to find people who have a set of practical skills and passion. Just posting an ad on job boards will get a flood of applications to sort out.

Once they've got the flood of applications the filtering begins. Having the degree is a strong benefit in that sorting. Having the degree is a benefit for negotiating wages.

> Subsequently I doubt myself because 99% people are telling me something I don't agree with; it's hard to tell whether I'm being blind to a bigger picture or

not.

You are very blind to the bigger picture. At this point in your career you don't understand it because you don't have the experience. You are young, and your life experience is primarily the academic world. People who are hiring you went through school and have those experiences, and additionally have many years or decades in industry.

> Still, it seems the most popular argument I'm given in favour of finishing the degree is that "I'm nearly there - it's only another 4 months", but to that I say it's an entire thesis that will take up all my time and energy for the next 4 months; it won't benefit me to do the thesis anymore than being able to say "Hey employers, I have an honours degree!" will.

As others have said, four months is nothing in the grand scheme of life. Sometimes a single job hunt will take more time than that. You're in a marathon and the finish line is visible, are you seriously going to throw in the towel at that point? Seems a waste, and if employers learn of it, it will make you look like a quitter.

> So if you were an employer, would you want to see my name next to an honours degree, or next to real products, or both?

I would prefer both if you are able to maintain the pace. I would prefer just the degree if you couldn't maintain the pace.

There is no shame in aiming ambitiously and learning it was beyond your limits. There is some shame in quitting when the goal is within your limits.

> Am I going to mess up my life by dropping out?

It will not "mess up your life", it is a decision that is open to you, it won't land you in jail or a coffin.

If it truly is beyond your limits for some reason, if psychologically you cannot cope and it will do permanent harm, or if financially you cannot afford it even with a reasonable amount of debt, or if due to some serious health concern it is not possible to finish, then that is different.

If the decision is based on just feeling like you want to be done, or eagerness to enter the workforce, that is probably a bad decision.

But it is a decision that will have costs. It will mean less lifetime salary versus completing it. It will mean more difficulty finding a job versus completing.

> I want to drop out, but I can barely find a soul who doesn't automatically advise that I finish it. Many of my fellow students really want degrees and that's why they went to university, but my attitude has always been very different. I only ever cared about learning what I needed to learn to be able to bring my ideas to life. I admired this attitude in myself for the most part, but that admiration has never been reciprocated by anyone else and now my faith in it is being tested pretty hard.

This is mostly from a lack of experience. It is about viewpoints. When you are a child you think like a child, interpret the world as a child, and struggle to interpret the world differently.

As you become a teenager you think like a teenager, interpret the world with more information than a child but less than an adult, and have a broader viewpoint than children but still cannot see the world as an adult.

As you become a young adult you have even more experiences, you can see the world with more information, but still cannot see the world as older adults do.

Right now you are almost done at school. In the academic environment you are king of the hill, top of the heap, the senior student who looks amazing relative to peers. In your perspective you are an awesome programmer. Right now relative to those around you, you are a superstar.

Once you enter the corporate workforce you will learn your A-level honors work projects and superstar status are what is expected for regular work day in and day out for the several decades of your life. Most of your co-workers will see your project and would be able to do similar work in a few weeks on the job. A senior level programmer could review your thesis project and likely could re-implement the whole thing in a week, doing a better job with better results.

The king of the hill student still gets an entry level job in the workforce. If they're really good they may not enter at "Software Engineer I", but instead enter at "Software Engineer II".

@frob

I appreciate the lengthy response. It was balanced and helpful.

There are some important circumstances in my situation as it happens. I've been quite depressed being at uni for a long time now, and this decision to potentially drop out is anything but impulsive on my part. In fact the only reason I didn't drop out earlier is because I was determined to finish the modules I had already started. This was partly due to an obligation I felt committed to in a team project. My plan was to complete those modules and to decide my course of action over the holiday period. A very strong factor in this for me is stress relief - it actually feels like I burned out a year ago and have being doing damage ever since.

I'm not sure what the sense of spirituality and/or gut-feelings is like around here, but I've felt a sort of calling to go and do my own thing as it were. I have a choice now to either commit all my energy to making myself /look/ good by getting a degree, or /getting/ good by doing more relevant self-study and seeing through my own set of goals.

It's hard to know what to say to your analogy of thinking like a child, teenager etc. I'm not sure the way I think falls into any of those categories. For one thing, I think of time as precious and the coming 4 months aren't so insignificant to me. I want to do something meaningful in the time it wouldve taken to finish the degree. I think I'm about to do more work than I've ever done and give something my all, and I don't want that something to be for purely superficial reasons e.g so I don't look like a quitter. If an employer doesn't look further beneath the surface to see a candidates true abilities, that candidate would probably only have existed as a number in a corporate environment. I'm a bit too free-spirited for that sort of thing anyway, so I suppose I'd be better off. It seems there will always be a trade off between my attitude to life and being successful in life, but you've got to do what makes you happy, right? Call it child-like or even idealistic if you will though...