17 replies to this topic

[Phoenixz]

I'm currently studying Graphic Design at college, i'll finish that this june.

I was wondering, do you think it's worth going to university (and getting £20,000 in debt) to learn Games Programming (C++) when I belive it can be learned on my own, at home, with books, and the internet, and practice.

Waste of money, or a good idea?

[so1i]

I've been having a similar problem recently. I want to be a programmer. I have a decent knowledge of some aspects of programming, and even looked at trying to do some practical work or getting a certificate of some kind.

Truth be told (in the UK at any rate) trying to find a job without a degree in programming is very hard. Whether you can do the stuff or not. Mainly because they all want experience, a degree proves at least some experience, without it, you have to try and get a job for experience - and then starts the infinite loop. Most jobs want experience.

So for me, I have chosen to go to Uni, get my degree (and some experience) then start out. Whether it is worth the debt of course, is still yet to be found out! :) Good luck with what you choose.

[James.H]

I also agree that the having a degree to your name will definitley help when looking for a job, as most employers these days will expect a degree (generally related to the field you want to work in).

However if you plan to be your on you boss (self-employed) and start a software company or just make and sell your on software then getting a degree won't pay off. However you will learn a lot when you go to Uni so I recommned it both ways.

[MathX]

I am doing a degree on CS and we learn a ton there. I think it is worth doing it.

[alienkinetics]

Warning: Opinionated Personal Views Follow

University is a joke. Your'e given weeks to finish assignments that, in the real world need to completed in 1-2 hours.

Ive seen a number of Uni grad's fail in their first week. One guy spent a week just looking at his monitor and didn't show up on monday. He got his mom to fax a resignation letter because he somehow stuffed up the computer. (these were the days of Windows 95/98 when a crash could mean a stuffed installation).

Ive seen Uni grades spend 2 weeks hacking perfectly good code without actually doing anything too it other than convert it to C++ with bull**** operator overriding, overloaded functions and adding bloated STL strings.

I saw one guy who wrote an entire container library because he didn't know how to use STL or VCL.

I even saw Java programmers complain when given a task in C. One guy was given a task to write a importer for another companies data file, but he wrote it in such a way, it would only load the one test file that he was given! He didn't seem to understand that it had to load _all_ the data files. ha.

Had another guy who lost half a day of work because he forgot to save it! I remember thowing out 8 months worth of crap code and rewriting the app in 3 months.

You wouldn't even beleive the crap C# code I saw at Motorola. One guy bragged that he made his code unreadable so the company was locked into him.

Needless to say, the site closed and they were all sacked.

My view is: Learning programming in University is a waste of time. There is already a glut of unless Uni degree holding students who cant code to save their lives. There is also a flood of students who have no intention of being good programmers, but will get their degree's because Univeristies dont test working skill's. They test virtual paper skill's.

But, then, all aboard the sinking software engineering field. Just remember, The money isn't good and there are other fields that need you, and game programming isn't as exciting as playing the xbox with ya mates.

[MeTh0Dz]

alienkinetics is apparently unaware that personal anecdotes are generally one of the worst forms of evidence when trying to support an case such as this.

Obtaining a degree from a university is a good way to establish with an employer that you have taken the time to learn some computer science, and that you have the dedication to stick with something for 2, 4, or however many years your degree took.

Now in order to maximize your university experience, you will need to have a high GPA and look for opportunities doing research and internships during the school year and even in the summer. Things like this give you invaluable experience and show employers that you can work in an academic or commercial setting.

Also let us consider how many careers in computer science require graduate degrees, such as research in algorithms, processor architecture/design development, professorship, etc. And you aren't getting a Doctorate without first getting your Bachelors.

Anyone who thinks that getting a degree from a university is pointless is either wrong or a statistical anomaly like Bill Gates.

[QuackWare]

Seeing as how computer science is not all about programming, earning a degree in the field is more important for the understanding of CS concepts. Employers look for people with degrees not for their knowledge of programming languages but their ability to problem solve and understand difficult concepts. Most of the programming you learn will be learned on the job or on your own.

[bobdark]

Relating to what alienkinetics said, thats just single examples of failing people. Look at the main case -
1) You will be introduced to various fields of computer science, as said before, and trust me, there is a lot of them.
2) You will learn to cope with problems on your own and study on your own, because they never provide you with full information on lectures/tutorials BUT!
You will be given a basis and you will be pointed in the direction of appropriate books/papers/websites etc.
3) You will have the course staff which you will be able to ask questions and get explanations, examples etc., face to face, and that makes a difference.
4) You will be introduced to the intersection of what you study from books, websites, lessons and what is really done in industry. Im not saying that when (if at all) you get to work at a company you'll know how everything works there, but at least you'll have something.
5) You will be given and taught some basic programming languages, which means you will not waste time on questions and decisions like "I wanna learn programming, with what languages should I start?" - search this forum - you'll find plenty of those.
6) Sometimes companies come to universities looking for students to do some work - this may get you into industry even before getting your degree.
Lol good luck getting into a company after learning by yourself for only a year or two.

Im not saying its impossible to learn by yourself or find a job by yourself. Im only saying its a lot lot lot easier if you study in un, plus do you have any idea how much time and money will you waste if you try studying on your own? Unless you are some kind of supersmart genius, it will take you a lot longer than in uni.
So my advice - go get your degree.

[agnl666]

I think it would be worth it though I don't know if my opinion can really be counted seeing as I haven't attended. I intend to though. I plan to go into engineering and double major in physics and computer science.

[jareyes]

University isn't a waste of time, if you are smart you will see a lot of oportunities to learn very interesting staff, the people that doesn't learn util things in the university is not sufficient mature to see what is in the important when they are there. Always you will find interestings projects outside the classroom, but inside the university that could be of your interest so that is an aditional plus. Its not only about the classes, its about all the environment, the people that you will know there.
But always depends of what do you want to your life and your personals skills.

PD: If you read something weird is because my english isn't my natural language..

[Sysop_fb]

Without a degree you're going to have to find alternate means of 'getting your foot in the door'.
Plus, college is what you put into it. Yeah you could just go to class, do your homework(or search the internet for homework answers like some) and go party. Or you could take on extra like research projects related to your field, join a club of like minded individuals and so on.

[JCoder]

@alienkinetics:
this is not university's fault. This is the fundamental law of programming: most programmers can't.... code. :D From the ~180 people that I know that were studying at the university together with me, I could trust maybe 1/4 of them to write something of a framework/engine kind (e.g. a database management system, web framework, game engine, typesetting software, CAD software etc). The rest is good probably only at taking data from the database and displaying them on the web / in an application window (typical "business oriented" programmers).

But this is not the fault of the university. It is the fault of crazy politics that 80% of people should have higher degree, here in Poland. So universities take in a lot of d*****es, just to get the money. However, those 1/4 of good students learned A LOT from the courses there and these are the things you can't find on the Internet or books (or even if you could, you wouldn't have a clue these things exist). Well, lots of the things I learned at the university were the things of a kind "Look, I tell you now things that are going to appear in my book in two years". ;)