I have a question about University of Advance Technology vs West Wood College. So far I have found out that at UAT I can. - Get a Bachelors Degree in Game Programming - $4700.00 a semester - At the undergraduate level, classes are taken one at a time and last five weeks each. Three classes will be taken each semester for a total of 15 weeks per semester. Courses are taken sequentially in order to build on the foundation of previous skills learned, which helps to increase overall understanding and comprehension. (What does this mean? that as an undergraduate I can only take one class a semester, or that I can only take a max of 3 classes per semester which are 15 weeks? i.e. one class every 5 weeks?) So from that I take it that per semester each class is about $1566.66 a class? Second question is that I learned from West Wood College that I can get - A Bachelor's Degree in Game Software Development which I'm assuing is just programming - Haven't been able to find out the cost of attending per semester would like to know how much that is, and how many classes I can take at a time. The rest I have more than enough prereq's to attend both schools, and would just like to get enrolled with one by September. Both Online which is what I'm looking for. And, if any of you can find, or know of a school that offers Bachelor's Degree in Programming with extensive, or game design implied and can be done online please let me know. Thanks,

I am a student of Westwood (at the Denver North campus) in their Game Software Development program. I will lay out the pros and cons of our program:

Con: The commercials are bad, and everyone knows that. My local program directors are working hard to address this, although it might take awhile for that stigma to be overcome.

Pro: The professors I have worked with are incredibly knowledgeable in their respective fields. Most instructors have doctorates, while some have masters.

Con: The general students who attend Westwood aren't the most dedicated. If you are self motivated, this is not a bad thing. However, it can be very frustrating pulling dead weight around.

Pro: The faculty is in touch with the game development community. I've had one-on-one talks with Jason Della Rocca, people from SOE, and some guys from MindArk.

If you want to PM me more about this subject, feel free. Above all, you need to be dedicated and passionate about games more than a college.

[Edited by - argonaut on June 2, 2007 11:37:00 PM]

I forgot to put this up:

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/issue/99/20

Cheers!

Quote:

I almost went to Westwood Chicago and during my visit they explained the courses a bit more. The Game Software Development degree (as of 2005 when I visited) was a long process that taught you the ideas behind programming, but consisted, from what was shown to us as potential students, mostly of programming scripts for and modifying the source code of the Torque Game Engine.

Again, I must iterate that any computer science degree is what you, not the school, makes of it (unless you are MIT or USC material). The instruction I'm getting these days includes algorithm design (that BigO stuff), design patterns, UML design, and software design. Westwood will teach you what you need to know, provided that you are willing to learn.

However, if you think game art/programming is something just for fun like the slackers in the Westwood commercials pretend, stay the hell away from me.