Only if I decide to come back next semester...Originally posted by Silvercord
Well if I do get in I know who I'll be paying to get my homework done (Poly need some dinero?)
You'd probably be correct if this were two or three years ago, but not now. Comair has made the first year courses retarded from what I've seen so far. While I'm sure that in many ways you may get a better programming education than many other colleges, it's still nothing like what it used to be.Originally posted by Silvercord
Digipen seems like a good school to go to because it seems more specialized than your run of the mill computer science program.
That's probably true, and I feel the same way about my abilities. I entered with an abnormally high amount of experience in C++, but that didin't seem to affect anything. You're just forced to waste the first 2 years being stuff that you already understand and in greater detail than they go into. Unfortunately, no colleges that I've looked at seem to cater to incoming freshman that are experienced programmers, so if you know the languages and algorithms and can program well, you'll probably end up being bored like you would at any other school. This entire year has felt like a waste of time for me, and I think I would have learned more if I had not even gone to college at all. I'm posting at a bad time for me personally, so maybe I'm making it out to be worse than it is, but from what I've seen, there aren't any majors that give you the programming courses you should have. At first I thought it may just be here, but I've talked to several people from many different schools who have majored in CS, software engineering, and the like, and I've noticed that none of them could program very well at all. Not only do they have trouble with advanced concepts in programming, but I've found that they don't even know the entire language.Originally posted by Silvercord
I'm not bashing normal computer science, its still a fine major, but I honestly believe I could pass a lot of the Junior level computer science programming courses with my existing knowledge, or at least without going crazy (I know a lot of junior level computer science courses deal with some pretty complicated algorithms, but depends where you at ).
#begingeneralrant
A lot of people are hesitant to major in CS now-a-days (any CS, not digipen's RTIS) because it's becoming hard to find a job. The problem isn't that there are a lot of good programmers out there -- the problem is that most graduates simply aren't good programmers. I look at it similarly to how I look at people who major in something like music. Sure, you can go through college majoring in music, but does that make you a good composer? Not necessarily. The same thing goes for CS, only now, no one seems to understand that, yet they all want to be programmers.
#endgeneralrant
I don't know anyone here who is an elitist jerk. Most of the better programmers simply don't talk much because they're busy programming anywaysOriginally posted by Silvercord
This is going to seem like a weird question, but are there a lot of jerks there? I honestly want to go there to learn something, and I want to be comfortable doing it, I don't want to take crap from elitist jerks (i.e is Poly going to beat me up and take my lunch money when my ray tracing program doesn't work?)
It's the ones who think they know a lot that are actually the jerks, but that numer is still very low.
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Be warned. If you know C++ well, you're going to want to kill yourself during the first two semesters. As I've said, Comair has introduced a "game maker" to the first semester, and the C++ class has become a joke (they still haven't even started on inheritance yet and theres just 2 weeks left in the semester, which is partially do to the fact that they have a C programmer teaching C++).
As an experienced C++ programmer, the first two semesters of GAM are going to be hell. You'll be either making the entire game, having no time for anything else, or you'll have to program down to their level of experience (read 0 experience), and watch over everything they do becaues of bugs and design flaws. The school's got problems with their course setup -- the only programming class first semester is an introductory C class yet during that same semester you are required to make a game with a group of 5 other people. Imagine all the problems you had the first month or two of programming and then multiply that by 5 to get an idea of what you have to work with.
Not only that, but half of those people don't even want to program. They come here with the illusion that they could come here and end up being game designers instead of programmers, so they will show no effort. Half of the remaining ones will be busy with other work, because they also are required to make another game using the "game maker" that comair has forced upon freshman students, not to mention the fact that there are 7 classes total during semester 1 alone!
DigiPen is not good for incoming experienced programmers or people coming in with no experience. There is a very slim range in between that will find the DigiPen experience truely worthwhile. All through this year I've been dangling on a thread of hope that maybe it will get better, and I'm extremely tempted to just cut that thread loose.
If there's one thing that's good about the school, it's the atmosphere and the attitude of a lot of the people here. It's still mostly geeks and they are mostly all very nice people, which is very rare to find for nearly an entire school. You also get to be taught by some people with experience in the game industry, which, IMO, is a huge plus.
It's up to you, but be aware that it's not the perfect school that you may be hoping for.
