Get a degree or not ?

    To be honest, If my parents were average earners I wouldn't have gone to Uni.

    As it is we are technically classified as poor, earning under £13k a year or something, so the Government pays all my tuition fee's (£3k a year) and gives me a £4k loan a year which has to be payed back and a £1.5k grant which doesnt.

    Good thing about paying it back in the UK is its automatically taken out of your wage (or something) and scales with what you earn. Earn a lot it takes more out, earn a little it takes less. If you're 60 then it get cancelled.

    i go to shitty community college and it is the worst educational experience ive ever had and definitely the worst socially. i wish i had the money to go away to a better college and stay away, but that's not happening.

    I work as an electrician and am trying to get into game development, so if I ever get a job and then get sick of it I can just go back to earning 20 grand a year and drinking myself to death. Either way I don't see university as a necessity, just an excuse to get into debt, fuck loads of slappers and eat badly.

    Yeah, you don't want to see the private school fee's

    Public education ftw. Universities used to charge something like £1.5k a year for tuition fee's, then this year the Government said you can charge upto £3k if you want. So they all did.

    Quote from ginger_lord

    I take it your an Englishman lost in Scotland then else Uni should be free no?

    free-ish. I had to pay the fees for the last couple of years because I did two years at Dundee University doing Applied Computing but then changed to my current uni to do games tech. They fund something like four years total (max) so I was two short as this is a four year degree. Not bad (compared to England) but it meant my summer job funded bugger all (I saved up for a 2407WFP and then had it cruelly snatched from my grasp ).

    Alltough my studie has almost nothing to do with gaming or even computers, I pay about $1800 dollars a year for college and I have to pay for everyting else myself, since I don't have wealthy parents.. I have to work to pay my college and rent and what not but as long as I can stay alive, study and have some weekly fun I'm happy, but I seriously dó think all knowledge and education should be free of any charge..

    It sucks not being able to learn what you want for financial reasons.. I know what it feels like.

    I took out loans to go to a private college. Yeah I'm in debt now but it also secures me a higher income so I can pay it off and be better off in the long run.

    I tend to agree with what most people seem to have posted; Uni is not about the degree... it's about UNI

    It's a great time to learn to be more independent and have a great time, but as people have said, having that piece of paper does not any longer guarantee you a job.

    A good modder/mapper is still a better candidate in most cases to someone who has a degree but no maps. A graduate with a degree AND good maps, though... Well...

    The only thing I'd add is, personally, after doing a "(Ba) Computer Games Design" degree is that you should try to widen your scope and do something not so blinkered and games-related.

    Looking back I wish I'd done English or Architecture or something 'proper' - something that also helps you in the long if you're not sure you want to be making games all your life.

    Having said that, let's be realistic, most (if not all) people here do want to be making games all their lives. And maybe it is greener grass... maybe doing 6 years in Architecture would be more frustrating if you just wanted to spend all your time learning/making/playing games.

    There have been times when I questioned the value of my degrees, but lately I have realized how much they have allowed me to grow as an artist. The higher education is really just a great set of tools. What you do with those tools relies on your own efforts. I agree with ferret about the financial trade-off. On a technically relevant note, I wouldn't have been able to do level design work in another country without it.

    Hopefully, I don't have to get a degree before "testing" the industry, to see if it's worth getting a 2-4 year education.

    Right now at school, I'm in vocational school (is the the right word? ) which focuses on design, illustration and commercial (it's advanced Media and Communications, so it's mostly CG related, very little by hand). So I have atleast another option if I fail or hate the industry.

    Another angle that I've not seen mentioned is that right now, getting a visa to work in the US is hard, and will probably continue to be so for the foreseeable future. A degree helps get you that visa.

    So if anyone is living outside the US, but thinks that they may want to eventually work for a game developer here, getting that degree will help make it easier to get you into the country. I'm not 100% certain on this, but I'm pretty sure it makes a difference.

    Also not mentioned: on average, college degrees equal higher pay. Obviously it's merit based in the game biz, but you're likely to start at a higher pay level with a college degree then without.

    Yeah, that's what I encountered. Without a degree, the US and Canada won't issue a work permit for video game work. So it also depends on the options you want in your future.

    That was one of the reasons I stuck out fourth year to get my Honours Degree rather than just the Degree - you never know what opportunities might arise in the future

    I always thought in Scotland you never got Honours and the 4th year was just the Masters?

    I know pretty much everywhere in England degree courses are 3 years and unless you are a retard you get a Hons at the end. To just get a "degree" these days I think in an Honours course you have to get between 35-40% i.e just not failing.

    I've no idea how it works in England, but in Scotland you do three years for your basic degree, then a fourth to obtain honours. If you leave after third year and get something like >60 or 70% I believe you can get a degree with distinction (or something along those lines) but most people stay on 'til 4th year to get an honours classification.

    >70% = first class

    >60% = upper second class

    >50% = lower second class

    >40% = third class / bare pass

    I think I'd kill myself if I got anything worse than upper second class because, in all honesty, even a pleb can can get a degree so long as they stick it out and put in the work. So if your degree classification is lower second class or worse, then it doesn't really say much about you other than you managed to finish the course and achieved a basic level of proficiency

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