All I can say is wow...

nilkn you basically just cleared up the rest of my concerns about the course I was taking and I thank you for that. I'd just like to say that I was trying (and somewhat failing) to not come off as an ignorant "know-it-all" in my original and subsequent posts. The fact is that I really didn't know what to expect, and when I looked at the course curriculum and saw so many familiar concepts taught all the way through the 4th year it scared me into doubting the course.

I was thinking about a double major at one point and then decided not to because I was afraid the work load would be too much. (I'll admit this was long before I realized I had lots of prior experience with what was going to be taught). Perhaps I will consider it again once I get situated at school and get a feel for the CS major.

One final question. In your opinion (anyone reading this), for someone like myself who loves Artificial Intelligence, and specifically its applications in Game Design, is Computer Science the right major at my school? Or would I be better off in Software Engineering?

Quote:Original post by ChugginWindex
I'd just like to say that I was trying (and somewhat failing) to not come off as an ignorant "know-it-all" in my original and subsequent posts.

Oh, don't worry, you didn't come off that way. I didn't mean in my previous post to make it sound like you did. Your posts here are very well-written and intelligent.

Quote:Original post by ChugginWindex
One final question. In your opinion (anyone reading this), for someone like myself who loves Artificial Intelligence, and specifically its applications in Game Design, is Computer Science the right major at my school? Or would I be better off in Software Engineering?

Computer Science.

Software Engineering has absolutely nothing to do with artificial intelligence... it's more concerned with the design of large software systems and that sort of thing. I know some people really like it and its certainly an important discipline, but--and this is my perception, so don't hate on me people :-) --I always thought of software engineering as the way to prepare for a job in a stuffy corporate cube, developing "requirements", "use cases", designing a system using UML, etc blah blah blah.

Those things are important, but my point is simply that CS is more concerned with tackling interesting abstract problems, while software engineering is concerned with organizing the code that solves those problems in a bigger system.

my degree is computer engineering but my point is relevant. I went to an school ranked a little higher than RIT. I was motivated to learn outside of the classroom in high school and all through college. I now have a real job as a software engineer and have an order of magnitude better performance than peers of my level.

If you're motivated enough, most undergrad technical courses at schools like ours will be below your competency (even many grad classes at my program - its not very good). For these few motivated people, college is not about technical learning - its about a GPA at the end that gets you your first job. And about whatever soft skills you pick up along the way. And about internships. And about girls.

Later in your program, talk to the people you have to talk to so you can get signed into grad level courses. Far more fun. I wish I didn't waste so much time on bullshit undergrad technical electives in comp sci and elsewhere for minors - I coulda been most of the way through a masters.

I only skimmed the thread to see if my point had already been said, its amusing how many of you have any respect at all for computer science programs at mid tier universities. Your average comp sci kid these days at mid-tier uni is some dumbass who played counterstrike in high school. I can't find the source, but somewhere a teacher reflected (parahprased) "There's two types of computer science students - the naturals who don't need help to learn CS, and those who simply aren't capable of thinking in rigid logic." CS programs can't filter these applicants, and they can't fail half their students, so they pass them along until they pop out with a degree. But all the lecture time is devoted to these students, and the naturals end up bored.

Quote:Original post by thedustbustr
Your average comp sci kid these days at mid-tier uni is some dumbass who played counterstrike in high school. I can't find the source, but somewhere a teacher reflected (parahprased) "There's two types of computer science students - the naturals who don't need help to learn CS, and those who simply aren't capable of thinking in rigid logic." CS programs can't filter these applicants, and they can't fail half their students, so they pass them along until they pop out with a degree. But all the lecture time is devoted to these students, and the naturals end up bored.

You're painting with a cartoonishly large brush, there. I graduated from a "mid-tier" CS program at the University of Central Florida, and they do, in fact, "filter out" a large number of their under-performing students. They have what they call a "foundation exam" which all students must take after a completing the basic curriculum (usually after sophomore year). If you don't pass the exam, which is heavily discreet structures and algorithms, you don't proceed. I believe that about 2/3 of students fail it at least once, and many never pass.

In any case, computer science isn't intrinsically any more ideal for self-teaching than any other science. You seem to be from the school which believes that "programming" equals "computer science", which is not even remotely true.

if you suck at academic CS, you *might* be an ok programmer. if you suck at programming, you don't have a chance at academic CS. but your school is awesome and i wish my school had been like that. This is the first time I've ever heard of it. I wonder what happens to those who don't make it - after paying two years of tuition, i imagine the school would have a hard time saying "you can't continue at CS, but you can repeat sophomore year in a different discipline". all of these thoughts are far outside of the OP's topic, sorry. edit: last thought, the large software company for which I work highers tons and tons of CS students - for their programming skills. I speculate the vast majority of CS majors end up in a programming job. the whole debate of "cs" vs "programming" (edit: at an undergraduate level) itself is academic and irrelevant to real industry.

[Edited by - thedustbustr on August 1, 2008 5:51:34 PM]

Quote:Original post by thedustbustr
last thought, the large software company for which I work highers tons and tons of CS students - for their programming skills. I speculate the vast majority of CS majors end up in a programming job. the whole debate of "cs" vs "programming" (edit: at an undergraduate level) itself is academic and irrelevant to real industry.

Well, that's true, but the vast majority of students go into CS to get a job programming. Those who are motivated by an interest in CS will find jobs which ask more of them and which utilize their CS knowledge to solve tough problems. Those who aren't interested in the CS will get a job banging out code to do some well-defined thing and will go home at 5:00 and do whatever it is that they do. :-)

Quote:Original post by thedustbustr
For these few motivated people, college is not about technical learning - its about a GPA at the end that gets you your first job. And about whatever soft skills you pick up along the way. And about internships. And about girls.

That is truly the ideal answer I was looking for! If what you've said is true, then I feel a whole lot better than I already did about my choice to stick with Computer Science as my major. (Also, it's kinda funny because even though RIT's Game Design major is considered very good, I couldn't help but think of it immediately when you mentioned students entering the field because they played CS!)

bumping because I found a relevant article that concerns OP:

EA recruiter: game degrees like a fashion accessory

Quote:However, Jeffery also stated that EA prefers graduates who have completed more traditional courses such as maths, physics and computer science over those with more specialised game-related degrees. He expressed concern these courses were creating too many graduates trying to break into the industry and the degrees themselves were not providing students with the skills that EA needs. Of the most concern to Jeffery were courses in game design--of the last 350 hires made at EA, only two were in entry-level game design, and neither of them had took a degree in that area.

EA still unconvinced by game design degrees

Quote:
Speaking in a talk at this week's Leipzig Games Convention, he explained that over the company's past 350 hires EA UK has only taken on two entry level game deisgners and they did not have game degrees.

He said: "The industry has very few entry level game design roles. Warning bells must ring if EA, the largest employer in the UK has not hired a graduate with a games design degree. We will soon reach a saturation point with so many students studying games degrees. What happens if they don't get a job in games? Games degrees are not readily transferable into other industries."

Parting thought on college: have a lot of fun, get good grades but don't study too hard, college is for doing awesome things that are utterly inappropriate in real life. in the 9-5 work force, you aren't really expected to be a technical leader until you have a graduate degree. And if you get into a decent program, your peers will be as motivated as you are, and you'll be expected to learn far faster than is comfortable :)