Well I''m just kind of looking for some advice or comments. I''m 18 and I''m going to University of Illinois in 3 months. I taught myself to program and I learned 3D math on my own time. I''ve programmed a few basic 3D engines with simple primitives, translations, rotations, lambert shading, gouraud shading, cell shading, and other basic things. Where do I go from here?? What can I do with these skills? What kind of job should I be looking for? I just feel lost...

If you''re lost then a university could be perfect for you! My advice would be to decide on something that you enjoy doing and keep going forward with it until it just "clicks".

A university can offer alot that 99% of people would never bother to learn on their own time, so if you haven''t really found your "obsession of life" or goals, then a University education would probably be a good idea.

As far as a job: 18, fresh out of high school, no formal education and presumably not much on a portfolio. If you "have" to work, then try to find something that can give you lots of time to study and work on your own projects. At most Universities you can find phone jobs where you spend 80% of your time doing nothing (IE- learning on your own).

On the other hand too, keep some modesty or you will be seriously let down. Everything you listed can be found on almost any 3d tutorial site. Nehe''s covers everything listed actually, if you use OpenGL. There will be dozens (if not hundreds) of other people at the University with similiar/greater knowledge. The fun part is finding and becoming friends with these people.

Keep all your options open, study, and have fun. Everything else will figure itself out. You''ll be one of thousands of freshmen at UI who are ''lost''. That''s the joy of college.