Thanks. Not that I want to get into too much detail but I do see a psychologist already. I've also made use of the university services. Sadly in the long run, university support services are not helpful enough, but the therapy does help give me some perspective. Through therapy (and a considerable amount of overthinking) I've learned that, even if my personality is a strong factor, uni makes me unhappy because it feels like I'm jumping through hoops and wasting time. Last year didn't feel like that - I was really learning a lot - but this year I honestly feel like the work I'm doing is a waste of time and energy. The only reason I chose to do honours year at all was because I thought I'd have a full academic year to develop my own project (I had an incredibly over-scope idea). It turns out the requirements for the honours project are more strict than I realized, and in fact my project has needed to be twisted into something more academically friendly. For me to complete that project now feels like I'd be bluffing the whole thing just to 'pass' instead of doing something meaningful. It feels too much like playing the game to me, and that's one of my psychological triggers that make me so intensely against staying. I can't play this game when I honestly know that's all it is; it won't make me a better audio professional - it will only make me look like a better audio professional, and so it feels like a waste of myself to go through it just because I'm afraid that I /need/ the honours classification. I have to doing something genuinely beneficial to be happy.

I do slightly resent that the world tends to work in these sorts of game-like ways and that most people would respond to this by telling me to suck it up and get on with it; my attitude is 'be the change you want to see'. I would like to be an example of someone that did what they thought was right, and I don't think it's right that the education system can be more about labeling over learning. I don't think the university is 100% a place of truth either, and that bothers me; I've raised issues about their testing systems and made other significant complaints, but the university pussyfoots around the issues and avoids liability wherever possible. If you want to appeal about unfair assessment, 'hoop jumping'is an understatement...

The real world alternative is to this is to stop wasting time now and begin real projects. Projects that help me learn what I need to learn, and projects I can I still would have access to all my learning resources which I planned to use, so I'll come out the other end of this as good as any other honours student in my field if I do leave. That is a guarantee because I'm not trying to escape intense workloads right now - I'm just trying to make sure what I spend time doing is /really/ worthwhile. Now in the real world I will be uninhibited and unconstrained in my work, and I will not be depressed. I will not feel like I'm wasting my time trying to look like a good student; I will actually be being a better student.

If you guys really think that it's better to have the degree than to become better at what you do and more knowledgeable I'll take all this advice carefully under advisement. But please tell me why if you think that way? To me it doesn't seem right, and I just don't understand how people can be so content to play the game to the detriment of their real potential. Also I haven't noticed anyone specifically tell me what's wrong with my current degree in comparison with an honours degree? It sounds from what you guys are saying that even if my C.V portfolio work was outstanding and also with the bachelor degree with merit that I have that my C.V would still end up in the bin most of the time. If so, why is that? Why would employers not be able to see that C.V in a positive light just because there is no honours classification (which I remind you in my case would amount to an illusion that I am a better student than without it, and would serve only as proof that I'm an A-grade hoop-jumper - it will NOT make me better and is therefore not something I can even be all that proud of.)

I appreciate that all of you have advised that I finish the degree, but the only way I can bring myself to act on that advice is if I can justify it to myself, and the only way I can justify it to myself is if you can honestly tell me that you believe it's better to look good than to be good OR if you can honestly tell me that outstanding portfolio work and a bachelors degree count for nothing compared with an honours degree. It must count for something because it (or possibly my demo or friendly demeanor) got me an interview with Lionhead last year. In fact now that I think about it, I hadn't even finished my bachelor degree before I did that interview. Funnily enough at the time I was posting here at the time asking if it was worthwhile to take the job and drop out of uni. I might go back to that thread for inspiration...

Not to sound harsh but the job world is all about jumping through hoops. The better you get at jumping through them the better off you'll be in the long run.

Lots of people get jobs without degrees. Lots more people get jobs with degrees. It really is just a choice you are going to have to make. One thing to think about is how useful the degree would be for getting a job outside the industry. Music isn't something like programming where there is always a constant need for a musician on the payroll. AAA games need several years to complete and smaller studios/mobile games might just buy premade royalty free music. You may have to pick up side jobs to supplement your main job. For the record, I'd say finish the degree as a fail safe for the future.

Thanks. Funny you should say but I've gotten really into programming and this is of the main reasons I want to self study - programming is more relevant to the skill set I need to be successful. When I said I had several personal projects in mind including an SFX/music pack, I may have understated that the music/SFX design is just to get the ball rolling as a sole trader. I'm primarily interested in developing audio software and indie games which have powerful or interesting audio/music engines. I think I can potentially be innovative in that regard, at least in a creative sense. In a perfect world I would be successfully self-employed as an audio software programmer so the idea of me jumping through hoops in the job world is a last resort anyway. I definitely don't rely on my self finding success through audio/music alone; I'm trying to get hands on with every aspect of game dev because I find it gives a creative advantage when designing audio related game mechanics. The dream for me would be to make my own games. I've made a small game in Unity by myself so I have a fair idea of what's involved. The only problem with games are that they can be enormous projects and may not be financially viable for me to undertake until later stages in life, but programming audio plugins on the other hand is something I think I can hit the ground running with. I wouldn't go looking for a job in these industries until I'd failed at being self-employed i.e completed and marketed projects from assets packs to plugins and games with little to no financial gain. I do already have a side job teaching guitar at a place nearby, and I might get some studio recording work through the same people once I have the free time away from uni to actually do it.

You're right though - it's just a choice I have to make. I didn't want anyone to here make this decision for me. Really I had made the choice already, but 99% of people are telling me it's the wrong choice and it's causing me to constantly reconsider. I just wanted the facts about my bachelor degree vs an honours degree on paper so I could justify ignoring the advice of everyone and have confidence in my decision. As it stands I can either concede and trust everyone else more than I trust myself or vice versa. It's quite a dilemma.

Not to attack the idea of quitting... what is it exactly that you plan on doing in the next four months that will be something you can be confident will carry about the same weight as an honours degree or otherwise would validate the time that you have invested so far?

What do you mean that you have a bachelors degree and are now completing an Honours degree?

In the US and the UK a bachelors degree is an Honours degree.

Your posts sound as though you are from the UK but in the UK there is no such thing as a separate "Honours" degree.

Do you actually mean you have a bachelors and are now doing a masters degree?

Or do you mean that you have done enough of your degree to leave with some kind of Diploma if you quit and if you finish it will be a proper degree with honours?


If you are planning to go self employed you do not need a degree.

If you plan on applying for a job then you need pieces of paper. The reason is that before anybody gets to see your portfolio they check your CV. The person who checks your CV is most likely somebody in Recruitment or HR. They will know nothing about Music, Games or Programming. They will know about only about academic qualifications and job titles. When it comes to applicants the one one with the best bits of paper and job titles wins the first round and their portfolio is passed on to the actual guy(s) who are hiring the ones with the least bits of paper get binned and nobody will even look at their portfolio. It is one of the games that you allude to. Life is full of game and hoops that you have to jump through and the only way not to follow the rules is to live in a commune somewhere.

It sounds like you've really already made your mind up that you want to quit. This is fair enough but, I don't think you are going to find anybody on here or indeed anywhere that is going to agree with this choice. 4 months is a very short length of time and spending that time finishing your degree which will then open doors for the rest of your life is probably a much better use of it than learning a piece of technology that will be obsolete in a few years time or producing an SFX pack that will earn you a little beer money.

?

What do you mean that you have a bachelors degree and are now completing an Honours degree?

In the US and the UK a bachelors degree is an Honours degree.

Your posts sound as though you are from the UK but in the UK there is no such thing as a separate "Honours" degree.

I'm in Scotland. Here I think we do more work in 3rd year than in other parts of the UK and we can graduate with bachelors degrees after 3 years study or we can do 4 years and graduate with a bachelors degree w/ honours. I think this is known as an unclassified bachelor degree. I'm in my 4th year and I quote the following which should indicate what my qualification is worth in some sense here (note the merit part is because of high grades across all my modules): "BSC/BSC (Hons) Audio Technology with Multimedia

The Assessment Board for the programme named above has considered your module results and has made the following decision:

Proceed: Eligible For Degree With Merit"

Not to attack the idea of quitting... what is it exactly that you plan on doing in the next four months that will be something you can be confident will carry about the same weight as an honours degree or otherwise would validate the time that you have invested so far?

Well this would first require me to talk a little about my honours project. The project I wanted to do was basically going to be a stand alone piece of software that could analyze MIDI files and manipulate them. The reason I wanted to do this project was partially so that I'd be able to learn C++ whilst at uni (I've done that), and partially because I have a bit of a fascination with the specifics of the idea. What actually has transpired in uni this year though has made me feel like I'm being held back in my productivity. The honours project is a research project and I'm mostly having to refer to other people's work to 'inform' my own work, and it seems criteria is more about how well you can make an argument than how innovative your practical work is. Now, I'm not trying to argue about the usefulness of research projects in education - I am simply saying that I feel like the honours project I would actually have to create over the next 4 months will be a pile of BS that I made up in order to meet the criteria. This feels like a genuine waste of my energy - I just can't 'play the game' if it means suffocating my passions and churning out an entire thesis made entirely to look good and pass rather than be meaningful. I already have done a considerable amount of coding for my honours project because I know how - I have a vision for that. If I want to pass the module though, I'll have to write A LOT about how I read academic literature and how that /informed/ my practical work (when really it never did - it would be a lie). Ultimately, I'm not so keen on doing pointless work for the sake of a bit of paper, I'm not so keen on sharing all my best ideas with the university especially when it forces me to constrain them, and I'm not so keen on holding myself back from learning what I need to learn in order to execute those ideas.

So to answer your question, what I'm proposing when I say I will do something in the same time it would take to graduate with honours is that I start my own projects/my own business, and I give myself targets for the honours deadline (even though that deadline doesn't effect me if I drop out - it's just a method of self-discipline). I give these targets 110% and by the time I hit that deadline I will have hopefully achieved something REAL. I will hopefully feel glad that I dropped out because I will be able to say "I didn't waste my own time and potential jumping through hoops in a one-size-fits-all education system - instead I seized an opportunity to motivate myself into doing the best thing I could possibly do with myself in that time". What specifically will I do? Well, I promise it will be the best use of my time and energy that I can come up with, but nothing is set in stone. I thought I might make one of my plugin ideas for Reason first. Also I need to build my website ASAP. I suppose by deadline I would like to have completed a plugin or perhaps a game prototype featuring some audio mechanics I've envisioned. It was a long term plan of mine to build a prototype and seek funding from there. It's not so important exactly what I do though - I just know I'll be extremely productive in whatever I do.

University is a hugely negative thing in my life for a lot of reasons now and I'm fed up of feeling so isolated in my views about the education system. Like I said before, my fellow students seem to be at university because they DO want degrees. They don't always care so much about what they learn if they can pass with ease. They want degrees for the prestige and because of the employment advantage. Me though - I'm fascinated by how things work and what you can create with them. I'm 100% dedicated to /understanding/ things and /knowing/ things. I have always said to my peers that it doesn't matter if you fail the degree - it matters what you learn. It's like Portal for e.g. (hope you've played it!) - Glados didn't approve of anything the player did - all that matters is the player's problem solving ability and the player can escape regardless of the authority figure's control or influence. I've always believed in the same sense that knowing and understanding will someday bring me success, and that it is more important to remember that than to get side-tracked into playing someone else's game. University hasn't always been that way for me- last year was very beneficial to me - but this year it is holding me back. I wanted to think that an employer would admire that attitude, but I suppose the truth is that I simply feel they ought to regardless of the true reality.

It's a fun and optimistic way to look at the experience we call life, and I don't wish to denigrate your free-spirited attitude. But as an employer, I would politely show you the door. Game development is NOT the place for this.

You couldn't if you tried =] I think I just made up my mind.

Working in games is a job. When you have a hundred million dollar budget it isn't play around all day in the lunch room discussing your favorite anime character. It's a fun job and there is definitely more screwing off going on then in a regular corporate setting. But like any job you are going to be asked to do a great number of things you don't like. You either slug through it to get to the fun part or you get your walking papers. One good thing about college is about half the classes you take you have no interest in but have to do get your degree. It sucks, but it is good job training. The other good thing about college is you can always go back. After a couple of years working you'll wish you could go back to the easy days of college.

If you get a job at a game studio and you think your first day is going to be something like them giving you a big room for six months and them saying "give us a masterpiece" and them promptly ignoring you. You're going to have a bad first day.