video game lecture in class

[amerlop]

Originally posted by piku

LMAO, but so true. While I have my exceptions, I can find just about anything interesting to learn, and find it hard to understand how others don't (expecially the actually interesting stuff). I guess I just have a thirst for knowledge or something (despite getting C's in school ).

I have no problem with learning in general and I think that my thirst for knowledge is as strong, if not stronger, than most. I'm much more disappointed with the university system and some of the people in it. I plan on taking my classes only as a formality and learning what I want to learn on my own. Personally, I find that more effective.

[Bystander]

I've seen both sides of the importance of education to get what you need to do. I would have to say that the gaming industry and technology in general is going towards a trend that favors the formal education. This wasn't always true in the days when video games could be created out of a garage between two people, but it is more true now in this day and age of people needing to know the jargon of the industry in order to communicate with other people in the field as well as be able to just do what needs to be done without having to catch up with those that did recieve the formal education. There are always exceptions to this rule in both ways, but for the most part, you don't want to depend solely on what you teach yourself because 1) That stupid piece of paper called a diploma can be a deciding factor between two equal resumes and 2) There are a lot of little nooks and crannies and complex standard philosophies about programming that you are unlikely to seek out if left to your own devices. Sometimes it is good to have some concepts stuffed down your throat against your will. You never know when that literature and grammar class may come in handy in the workplace as you work on your game design or coding standards documentation. It's good to be well rounded, no matter what you do for a living.

I've worked with many self taught programmers as well as many formally educated programmers, and I will say now that there is definitely a difference. There is a difference in communications ability, confidence levels, code readability, coding habits, and understanding potential that favors the programmer who received the same standardized education that most other programmers have received.

I won't speak for artists, so I'll just say that this only applies to people interested in their education for purposes of programming in the gaming industry.

On a side note, the gaming industry is not just programmers and artists. For people who know how to use a computer, there is always the ever important quality assurance field. If you can write and have great attention to detail, you might move from QA to writing game design documentation as a part of a design team. There are also many tasks in making a game that involve a computer that non-programmers and non-artists can do. These people are called data-wranglers. They make sure that all of the data is in the correct place to be used by the game. It's a tedious, but important job. Many of these categories are mixed and possibly all done by the same person or groups of persons.

[johnk_]

Originally posted by Ranji
Wow. Here I was thinking that this forum was a rare sanctuary for intelligent gamers.

What a great idea, let's just kill academia, and destroy what's left of an intellectual climate in our culture. The later Romans and Byzantines did the same thing, shutting down classical schools of learning and gradually restricting philosophy to theological scholasticism. Look where it got them! Course you wouldn't know that without a goddamn education.

i never suggested anything like that..
i was just saying that I (personally) feel like I'm wasting my time.. Almost everything i've learned about computers and programming was self-taught, so maybe these classes just aren't for me.. i don't really know..

please don't get me wrong on this subject.. i support our education system whole-heartedly and hope we can find ways to improve on it..

but i just feel like i've been doing the same shit forever..

of course i'm going to keep going with it though.. ;p
what else would i do?

[rezo]

There is a difference in communications ability, confidence levels, code readability, coding habits, and understanding potential that favors the programmer who received the same standardized education that most other programmers have received.

this is a property of standardization in general. As for relative
ability what do you notice?

[Bystander]

For those that are not satisfied with their current education. I feel ya, and know that everyone's just about in a similar boat. The good ones tend to get jobs deep in the industry and work and make money, and we get some of the theoretical acadamians (with a few exceptions) left to teach, but it is still far better than nothing in many ways.

To answer the question about relative ability, I speak only of communications ability... not potential as a programmer. Everyone has the same potential, you unlock that potential through your experiences. After maybe 3 to 5 years of real world experience, a self-taught programmer will very likely be on the same grounds as a formally taught programmer... if they have good mentors. You learn roughly 10% of what you need in school. The rest, you gain through your work experience and whatever you learn on your own.

Back to communications ability... I have had to go through some awkward situations with certain self taught programmers of having to explain why you want to make destructors virtual and why you should use dynamic casting instead of static cast to perform runtime checks and how protected, private, and public inheritance works, among other things. These programmers have the potential, but they are doing a lot of learning on the job that they should have learned in the classroom or on their own time... not on the company's time.

Programming has many levels of experience. You learn the basic and syntax in school or on your own. You round out your use of basics on your first year of real work with some good mentors (everyone should have programming mentors). Eventually, you reach the next level, where you start thinking about freaky concepts like Design Patterns and Anti-Patterns and the intended use of Interface classes that you may have missed in school... but the language you need to interpret and solidify these concepts in your mind... you must know well, either through your education or through your own self taught experiences. But about those self taught experiences, I make an analogy to fighting.

You can teach yourself how to fight and you might be naturally good at it. But if your opponent is a trained fighter with a coach, would you be as confident fighting that person as you would another self-taught fighter?

[Crafter]

I have a lot to say about this, but it exhausts me to even think about it right now. I'm inundated with work.

Amerlop et al: All I'll say is that, as someone who is in grad school for the humanities (and, in particular, literature), my education track will take the longest of most. Getting a Ph.D. in a literature field takes, on average, 7 years. Plus, I am in an MA and MFA pre-doctorate program. Too long? Perhaps. Are people like myself bound up in theories and abstractions? Probably. They're probably even myopic to the point of being ridiculous. But I have tried very, very hard to be kind, and to understand that what I do is compelled by a genuine passion. "Making it in the real world." How do you define the real world?

Education, even beyond the education of high school and college, and even in those disciplines that do not deal with the ideologies of the vocational, are essential, and are very real. Just as the man who cleans shit out of a toilet has a real job, so too does the man who explicates the poetry of Robert Penn Warren. Both may not effect one another, but both are real; and both are essential. Both are needed.

However, I am very appreciative of the man who helps to fix my car, but I could fix it myself. I am very appreciative of the plumber, the janitor, the clothing store, the electrician, the banker, etc, and all those that are in the vocational fields.

Just because you are disenhcated with education, there is no reason to equate those in the world of academia to pompous assholes. There are some out there, though, I know. And I'm sorry if you've run into them. Those that are only concerned about tenure do not have their priorities in order, trust me. (And I agree those who enjoy Proust and Joyce are. )

[amerlop]

Yeah, Crafter, I admit that I was getting a little ranty there and some of the generalizations I made were unfair (aren't all generalizations like that a least a little bit?). My first post in this thread was made at around 2 am EST and I had to take my final final exam of the semester at 8 am EST. I suppose I could sum up alot of the "pompous asshole" comments up to blowing of 15 weeks up pent of steam. I do think that academia is great and all, I really do. Maybe as I make my way through my formal education and find myself taking more and more classes that I want and less classes that I am obligated to take, my viewpoint will change slightly (at least, I hope so).

As to my "real world" comment, I was not implying that professors are not skilled in real world skills. I just think that the university system and standardized education bear very little resemblence to the job market and most working situations. Can I think of a way to change this system for the better? no. I realize that if I am gonna recognize problems and provide no solution, I may as well be a Media/Mass Communication Theorist (:::cues two rim shots and a crash symbol:: but, again, I guess I am just blowing off a little steam, I suppose.

All in all, I guess I'll eventual take something useful out of my 4-7 years and I'll yell at my kids when they make the same comments that I have put forth