A Master's In CS or a Master's In Game Programming?

Rustcycle asks: "I'm attending the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, which has just announced that they are offering a Master's Degree in their Games and Media Integration (GMI) program. There is a fair amount of overlap between the GMI curriculum and the CS courses, so I'm considering a switch in degrees. If you were hiring MS grads outside the game industry for visualization work, am I worth more to you with the more specialized program or would you be more interested in me if I had more exposure? Within the gaming industry, how much does a specialized degree compel a company to hire a recent grad?"

What's in a game?

[Anonymous Coward]

That which we call coding, by any other job would smell as sweet.

Re:Get the CS degree

[jfclavette]

I would agree for a B., but a M. is different. A masters will most often than not be relatively narrow, so why not narrow toward something you want to do ? Of course, my advice real advice would be to find a job..

In general terms...

[noz]

Man gotta have skillz.. No seriously. ;-) Demonstrate an understanding of principle concepts across different computing niches; that's what makes you an asset to your employer and, should you need other work, yourself.

Re:I say stick with the CS

[nightgeometry]

I think what you meant to say is "Game programmers are to normal programmers what surgeons are to doctors."

But then I don't agree with that anyway, so what do I know?

Re:I'm about to graduate from a gaming school

[daVinci1980]

You might be different. Maybe you're great. I've worked with one guy from Full Sail, and he's painted a bleak picture of what they let through as graduates.

Since then, I haven't had a single candidate make it past phone screens from gaming universities. Maybe you're the exception.

Education is a tool, but it's pretty much the only thing I have to go on for recent graduates.

Best of luck!

Comparison

[Anonymous Coward]

Lets see. Video games have been out for a while. Most of the programmers are Comp Sci degree holders. So you can do Game Programming with a CS degree, but can you do Comp Sci with a Game Programming degree?

Most people have multiple careers. Choose wisely.

If you even need to ask that...

[JustNiz]

If you can contemplate other work then you're already not dedicated enough to work in the games industry.
Its crazy long, hard hours for low pay. You gotta know why you're there.

Degrees in general

[ZorbaTHut]

As someone in the game industry, I care absolutely zero for what degree you have. Seriously. It makes no difference to me if you have a MS in game development or a PhD in agriculture. I simply don't care. If you wanted me to hire you, you'd have to have some proof of your skills - a game you worked on, a significant amount of code you'd done (or art, if you were an artist). Something that can prove you actually know what you're doing, and not simply that you have a piece of paper.

The "game degree" path may push you through making an actual game. Or it might not. I really don't know, and I honestly don't care. Pick your classes based on what you'll learn from them, not what your diploma will say.

This assumes you want to get a job at one of the smaller more personal companies, not a code-monkey job at a behemoth company.

Re:Get the CS degree

[poot_rootbeer]

A masters will most often than not be relatively narrow, so why not narrow toward something you want to do ?

It's not a bad idea, but don't narrow it down so much that you end up with a graduate degree that only helps you get work in one single small, cutthroat industry.

Many universities allow matriculants to design their own course of study. Take courses and do research projects involving graphics, artificial intelligence, and distributed multi-user systems, but don't call it "Game Programming" -- call it "Interactive Multimedia Design" or something.

Get a job!

[Tuirn]

Please give this serious consideration. Having received a BS in CS and spending a little less than a decade creating software professionally (not game programming). From my experience, I'd rather higher someone with a BS who is intelligent and has several years of good experience than someone who only has an MS. I've unfortunately run into too many of these folks who lack the ability to cope with the real world. It seems like the best use of these advanced degrees are if you want to stay in school and teach.

If you really are determined to get an advanced degree please, please, please get a general CS degree (Software Engineering possibly?). It will serve you much better in the long run than some thing like game programming.

Whatever path you choose, good luck.

Masters in CS

[topham]

If you have a Masters in CS and have a keen interest in writing games you should be able to create proficient demos showing your technical and artistic skills for creating games.

If you get a Masters in Game Programming you will have a harder time convincing someone outside the Game industry that your skills are appropriate to their industry.

Assuming you absolutely only intend to go in to Game Programming related jobs then either are probably equally good choices, but if there is any chance at all you'll take a job outside of the game industry then there isn't really a choice.

Game Degrees are worthless

[skap35]

Any game degree is laughed at by most IT shops. I've always thought of gaming majors as kids who just want to play, whereas people with a CS degree are more serious about their work. Whether or not that's true in all cases is another story, but when an employer is looking at your resume and he sees "Masters in Videogame Devel" he's not going to take you seriously; it doesn't matter how good you are. And remember that if your goal is actually to be a videogame developer I still say go with CS. You can still be a game programmer with a CS degree plus you have a more general degree to fall back on.

Re:Get the CS degree

[Ash Vince]

From what I remember the main skills you need are huge amounts of 3D vector geometry to a level that is mainly taught only in the Physics field.

But who wants to work in games software anyway. As a general rule in the real world - the more rewarding a job is the less you can expect to earn for it.

Plumbing....

[mikelieman]

Everyone wants to change their bathroom.

Get over the vocational degre mentality

[wikinerd]

Do not get the Games degree. Stick with CS, or get a Management degree (or both if you can).

And, please, get over this "degrees are for jobs" mentality. It destroys your education. With a good CS degree you may become a researcher someday and win a place in next century's schoolbooks. With a Games degree you will just get hired to work 15 hours per day with unpaid overtime for an incompetent boss who spends his time with call girls, and you will get fired when you get sick from overwork. Learn to lead your life and understand that a Master's degree is for masters, not for slaves (employees). Become a capitalist, found your own startup and focus on becoming a free man.

A games degree wouldn't make me hire you. Work experience wouldn't, either. What matters to me is your ability and willingness to learn, your educational and academic/research background (but it's also ok for me if you managed to learn real science on your own without going to university), your general intelligence, and your leisure activities. If you watch TV in your free time, you aren't gonna being hired by me, but if you read books (I assume you already have a Safari subscription, right?), hack open-source code or write good stuff at Wikipedia, or if you participate in free community wifi networks, then this matters much more to me than work experience (and actually also more than academic background). I want to hire hackers, not employees. I do not want people who like being led, I want to get other self-starters and leaders collaborating with me (with profit sharing of course). I would prefer a hacker with 1 year's verifiable volunteering experience in Apache or FreeBSD kernel to an employee (read: slave) with 10 years of experience in a Dilbertian company (some exceptions allowed for serious innovative companies that pay for their staff's training and perform real R&D). I do not want slaves working for me, and people who destroy their education by getting vocational degrees have a slave mentality (and they are unproductive: Trained slaves aren't motivated and don't get things done). Get over this "work experience" thing: At companies you only learn some random stuff here and there to do your work as your boss wants, at universities you learn the real stuff (often without much focus on practice but it is assumed that you are smart and therefore capable of practising on your own after you learn the theory), and in the free communities (open source, open content, community wifi) you learn how to be a good citizen in addition to polishing your practical skills.

Re:Get the CS degree

[rblum]

They *used* to be laughed at. I heard good things about Guild Hall.

Ultimately, I don't care what your degree is, though. Convince me that you are smart and get things done, and I'll recommend we hire you.

Re:Get the CS degree

[littlewink]

As someone who's worked in IT, I'll tell you that the CS degrees are largely laughed at by those of us (still) in the industry.

Seriously, fuggetaboutit and get a business degree instead.

Re:Skip them both.

[Per Abrahamsen]

> java jobs --> 15969

If you want a job in a coffee shop, by all means, learn java.

> ruby jobs --> 297

There aren't that many open positions as jewelers out there.

But if you want to be a programmer, learn programming fundamentals. Don't just learn a language. It will soon be replaced by the next buzz word language sold to the pointy heads anyway.