I had the same problem; my parents make too much money, but they also have too many bills, so they can't financially support me. I was able to get a little bit through scholarships, but not nearly enough to cover full tuition/room and board. Not to mention the other expenses accrued during college.

My solution? Private loans with a co-signer. While your mom might make too much money to get you enough through federal loans, if she has a good credit score, she can co-sign a private loan with you for a relatively decent interest rate. Unlike federal loans, private loans accumulate interest while you're in college, but you don't have to pay for it until you graduate/drop below full time. Plus, once you get a good credit score for yourself, which you can do by getting a credit card and being responsible, you can start getting loans under your own name without a co-signer.

It's worked for me. Every single dollar that has paid for my education so far is either through a scholarship or a loan under my name. I was able to take out loans without a co-signer by my junior year. The interest rates weren't as good, but at least I could finish college. I will graduate with a debt about twice as much as the average four-year graduate, but considering I will have a Computer Science degree, I expect to make enough money to cover it. :)

You have several options for private lenders; I get my loans through Sallie Mae.

Well that's unusual but not really interesting. I think you'd have to have something like a guinea pig that can solve sudoku puzzles while doing to the macarena.

I am sitting on $100,000 in private bank student loans because DigiPen wasn't accredited when I started my degree there (so scholarships and federal loans wouldn't accept it).

In the end, the question isn't how you can pay for it, but how much you want it. You can always find the money, it just might be private bank loans (such as the Key Alternative Loan from KeyBank, which is what I have).

Quote:Original post by jjd

Quote:Original post by Troll
Not necessarily. If you can prove you know your crap in an interview, you can get a job without a demo. When all else is equal, a good demo is definitely a significant bonus. But all else isn't always equal.

It is very unlikely (although possible) that you can get a job as a game programmer without having a demo. As Kaysik said, without a demo you may not even get as far as the interview stage, and you'd have to bring something unusual and interesting to the interview to get any further (simply having a bachelors degree in computer science is unlikely to cut the muster).

Troll (who isn't a troll, but a long-time industry professional) is right on the money and I agree with his quote above 100%. Certainly it holds true for our studio: I have interviewed hundreds and hundreds of programmer candidates and never once have I cared about a demo (nor will I ever care about one).

In a nutshell, the problem with demos is the following. If I were presented with a demo I have to ask myself questions like:

• Did the candidate write this or is he trying to pass of someone elses work
  
• Did he use other peoples code or is it all his
  
• Does he understand the <3D math he used to control his spaceship> (or whatever topic) or did he just cut and paste an answer from, say, gamedev.net
  
• What data structures did he use for <something>
  

Compare this with a situation with no demo. I don't have to ask the first two questions, and I can still ask the last two questions without a demo:

• Describe the <3D math needed to control a spaceship> (or whatever)
  
• What data structure would you use for <something>
  

In short, a demo doesn't tell me anything that I cannot more easily extract out of someone just by asking direct questions! For me, a demo would only serve as a tiebreaker if all other things were equal.

That said, demos remain valuable to candidates, because there are other (crazy!) people out there in hiring positions who think there is a value to demos.

Instead of writing demos, my recommendation to people wanting to break into the industry is to fill their websites with sample code and technical articles and to participate in industry forums (like gamedev.net) and post on technical topics. To me, these things are much more valuable than a demo, because I can read them and directly begin to evaluate the candidates technical skills and decide whether I should sort them at the top or the bottom of the pile. (Demos serve a similar purpose, but not as strongly.)

Of course, it goes without saying that the sample code, technical articles, and forum posts all must be solid stuff, or it's just going to work against you! Oh, and post under you real name so when that resume comes across my desk I can associate the name with all those great posts that you made to gamedev.net; otherwise the posts, however amazing, won't make you much good!

Well, you say thay you don't think demo's are useful because there are several problems with them, but your solutions suffer from exactly the same problems.

It is more probable that a candidate would cut-and-paste a code sample, than an entire program. So even if they do have a code sample on their website, you still have to convince yourself that it is their own work. Furthermore, I don't care if they didn't write all of the code. I don't want them to write all of the code. I want to see them program smartly and use the resources at their disposal.

A demo provides a good starting point to probe the candidates understanding and ability to solve problems. If a candidate provides a demo that they don't understand, they're just providing the rope to hang themselves with.

A demo also provides information that a code sample doesn't. It provides insight into their ability to design and solve problems. It represents a set of decisions that the candidate has had to make and that provides another opportunity for questions to gain greater understanding regarding their ability.

In my opinion, a demo is a good thing to have. It enables you to gain greater insight into candidate than you would otherwise have and it does not stop you from asking any of the other questions you want to ask. In my experience, it provides an efficient way to gauge a candidates ability.

Having a website to demonstrate your skills and involvement in the community is a great idea. However, the last thing I want to do is search through forum posts, most of which will be trivial, looking to see if the candidate knows their stuff. If their demo, cover letter, and CV cannot get them in interview, then their forum posts are unlikely to help.

Quote:Original post by Christer Ericson

Quote:Original post by jjd

Quote:Original post by Troll
Not necessarily. If you can prove you know your crap in an interview, you can get a job without a demo. When all else is equal, a good demo is definitely a significant bonus. But all else isn't always equal.

It is very unlikely (although possible) that you can get a job as a game programmer without having a demo. As Kaysik said, without a demo you may not even get as far as the interview stage, and you'd have to bring something unusual and interesting to the interview to get any further (simply having a bachelors degree in computer science is unlikely to cut the muster).

Troll (who isn't a troll, but a long-time industry professional) is right on the money and I agree with his quote above 100%. Certainly it holds true for our studio: I have interviewed hundreds and hundreds of programmer candidates and never once have I cared about a demo (nor will I ever care about one).

In a nutshell, the problem with demos is the following. If I were presented with a demo I have to ask myself questions like:

• Did the candidate write this or is he trying to pass of someone elses work
  
• Did he use other peoples code or is it all his
  
• Does he understand the <3D math he used to control his spaceship> (or whatever topic) or did he just cut and paste an answer from, say, gamedev.net
  
• What data structures did he use for <something>
  

Compare this with a situation with no demo. I don't have to ask the first two questions, and I can still ask the last two questions without a demo:

• Describe the <3D math needed to control a spaceship> (or whatever)
  
• What data structure would you use for <something>
  

In short, a demo doesn't tell me anything that I cannot more easily extract out of someone just by asking direct questions! For me, a demo would only serve as a tiebreaker if all other things were equal.

That said, demos remain valuable to candidates, because there are other (crazy!) people out there in hiring positions who think there is a value to demos.

Instead of writing demos, my recommendation to people wanting to break into the industry is to fill their websites with sample code and technical articles and to participate in industry forums (like gamedev.net) and post on technical topics. To me, these things are much more valuable than a demo, because I can read them and directly begin to evaluate the candidates technical skills and decide whether I should sort them at the top or the bottom of the pile. (Demos serve a similar purpose, but not as strongly.)

Of course, it goes without saying that the sample code, technical articles, and forum posts all must be solid stuff, or it's just going to work against you! Oh, and post under you real name so when that resume comes across my desk I can associate the name with all those great posts that you made to gamedev.net; otherwise the posts, however amazing, won't make you much good!

I tend to agree with you. To be fair, I don't see any value in a demo. A demo don't prove anything, except the fact that you actually think that you are good at coding - which might not be the case at all - while a degree actually prove something (you were able to work as hard as it was needed to get this degree). Time spent on a demo would be better spent on learning and on learning how to learn. Should I spent some time to interview a guy that decided that doing a demo was more important than going to school? Not sure. Maybe he is the kind of guy that feels more comfortable when he does things he loves, and his job is typically full of thing he won't enjoy at all. So far, the dedication he showed in making the demo is not an indication of the commitment he'll have to put in a real product.

IMHO, the companies which requires a demo before the interview are shotting themselves in the foot. By putting the demo above all, they miss the great, clever guy that actually knows lot but due to time constraint was not able to make a good enough demo. Worse, they'll hire the guy who can barely code and only have a limited understanding of what goes under the hood instead of the guy who have a strong understand of the current technology and very good coding practices for the sole reason that the first did a demo. That's not a reasonable choice, and that's actually one of the reason why the industry is cluttered with poor engineering practices. The game industry continues to see itself as the 1337 coding industry1, requesting any applicant to show their fancy ub3rsk1Lz0zr, while it should step down and hire capable software engineers in order to face the coming next-gen challenge. Capable software engineers are known to be able to adapt to new constraints - will the fancy hacker be able to follow? It is more important than ever, and it seems that games companies are still unable to see it2. They are not mature enough - and they still have to grow up.

Note that this is entirelly different for artists: without a portfolio, it's kind of hard to hire an artist: but art is not as technical as coding.

Now, that's only an opinion [smile].

1: that shows a very poor understanding of the software industry in general. Game programming is by no way different from application programming. For most part, it is actually easier, as the constraints that drives game programming are far less important that the constraint that drives most other programming industries. If you don't believe this, try answering this question (quietly: I don't want a flame war here, as it serves no purpose). From these two software, which one is the most complex: Halo2 or a stock exchange monitoring application? Doom3 or Linux? WoW or Google (both are a collection of softwares, but don't consider the front end - only the server part)?
2: Sorry Christer and Troll - I was not speaking about your respective companies but there are still a lot of companies that think or seems to think in this way.