By "getting in" I mean any kind of programming/development job, not necessarily one in making games. I started majoring in art in a 4-year college, into the Electronic Media program. Later on, I realized that I enjoyed more of the technical work and development side. So I took a few CS courses though it's not enough to make a major, or even a minor at this point. Next semester I would be graduating with my BFA in electronic media. How good are the chances to get into anything that's software related with a degree like mine? For my skills I have 3 years working with PHP and MySQL. My first experience with C was an interactive art course where we used OpenGL. On the CS side I took some discrete math and data structures courses.

For employers who are after degrees, it's usually not too big of a problem if your degree doesn't directly relate to programming. Usually what they're after is some kind of indication that you can stick to the degree program and do the work. Obviously more programming-related classes won't hurt, but it isn't absolutely mandatory.

Your skills and portfolio are usually much more important, especially in games. (Outside of games, look for smaller companies or consulting jobs; big businesses tend to be pretty anal about buzzword compliance and won't necessarily even look at your portfolio.) If you can program well, you'll be able to get a job. I'd recommend making sure you have some impressive personal projects to show off, and get as much coding practice as you can.

Contributing to open source projects is a possible plus; it gets mentioned a lot but frankly isn't necessarily worth more than doing something on your own. Generally speaking, though, just find something you enjoy working on, and work on it [smile]


Strictly speaking, degrees aren't all that vital if you know your stuff. It's not unheard of for completely (and I mean completely) "uneducated" people (in the sense of no paper qualifications) to get good jobs in the programming industry.