Thread: question to digipen folk and graduate courses

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    question to digipen folk and graduate courses

    If I get accepted to Digipen, can I still get accepted to other schools if I want to get a masters in something else when I'm done with DP (assuming I'd be getting a bachelors in RTIS)

    Also, would I get turned down from 'regular' software jobs if I got a degree from digipen?

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    cereal killer dP munky's Avatar
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    yes! you can still get accepted to other schools, i applied to 3 schools and was accepted by 3 schools(digipen, purdue, itt tech) i just chose digipen

    >>if I want to get a masters in something else when I'm done with DP

    you can. claude comair(founder of digipen) wants to get a masters degree in rtis to go along w/the 2 and 4 year programs...already digipen offers the 2 and 4 year rtis, a 2 year in art/animation, and if you do the 4 year rtis you can get a minor in mathamatics

    but if you want to go to another school...that wont be a problem either, actually depending on where you go, you might only have to go for a year to get your masters, digipen puts 5 years of credits into 4


    >>Also, would I get turned down from 'regular' software jobs if I got a degree from digipen?

    no! digipen's whole philosophy is, "we arent going to teach you direct x, we're going to show you how to write your own".......

    yes games, and game programming is the main focus, but it is a computer science degree(more or less) so finding a job afterwards(gaming or 'regular') wont be a difficult task. a lot of people here(myself included) either cant afford or just plain dont want the 4 year degree and those guys arent having any problems finding work

    overall its not a bad school, if i had it to do again i wouldnt come here, but not because of the school dont get me wrong...because of the schools relative location 2,417 miles away from my girl the school is just like any other, you'll have to take 2-3 crappy classes the 1st year,(and you'll get a chance to see how wonderful project fun is...and the real reason it's called project fun) but it gets better....and easier, the longer you're here the better things seem to get

    if you want anymore info let me know OR you can PM polymorphicOOP or Mr.Wizard they're digipen students as well

    hope i helped
    Last edited by dP munky; 04-04-2003 at 03:41 PM.
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    I've got another question, would you be willing to take a camcorder around and film the digipen campus? I'm willing to pay $50 for about 10-15 mins of film assuming it shows most of the Digipen campus (i.e you just walk around and say "this is this building, we do this here"). I'll pay $25 before, and $25 after I get the film in the mail (this sounds like a drug deal). I'm dead serious about this, too. The reason I'm asking is the fact that I cannot fly out there for an interview or anything so I cannot check out the campus.

    If you cannot do it maybe you could ask Mr. Wizard, Poly, or anyone else at DP to do it. I would appreciate it a lot, and like I said I'm willing to compensate.

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    cereal killer dP munky's Avatar
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    i would, seriously, but it might take a few days, i'll have to ask around to see if anyone has a camera, personally i dont, i could send you a lot of 35mm pics from around school but video would be better, i'll see if any of the guys i know have a camera that i could borrow for a day or 2....hell yeah i'll shoot ya some video.

    the campus is in one building, the 2nd floor, i could still walk ya around saying this is this class this is this auditorium etc.

    i'll let ya know
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    I'll PM ya

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    Crazy Fool Perspective's Avatar
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    does DP cover non-game programming types of computing as well?? like OS programming, non-proceedural programming languages, computer architecture, etc....

    seems like an interesting school. far to rich for my blood though, id be an 'international' student.

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    No they dont' have those types of majors, its art and real time interactive simulation (both in 2 and 4 year majors).

    go look at the website for more info (www.digipen.edu)

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    cereal killer dP munky's Avatar
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    they offer classes but no majors
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    wow, I looked at the site earlier. It's expensive. ~$50k per year. That has to be one of the most expensive schools I've seen.

    edit: nevermind, me being stupid. I just looked at it again, it's ~50k for the degree.

  10. #10
    Programming Sex-God Polymorphic OOP's Avatar
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    Originally posted by Perspective
    does DP cover non-game programming types of computing as well?? like OS programming, non-proceedural programming languages, computer architecture, etc....
    DigiPen doesn't cover "only game programming." It covers programming, with the projects being games. It just happens that games are one of the best places to use complex datastructures, organization, and they can potentially be very complex. Don't expect it to be "This is how you make a game." It's more of a major in programming, with games as the focus for labs.

    There are two OS classes offered, I believe, though I'm not sure if the 2nd one actually deals with programming an OS, but it may.

    Non-procedural languages? C++ of course! If you meant do they teach languages which FORCE non-procedural programming (IE java), then no. Object oriented design is a common concept between object-oriented languages. The only differences come in the syntax of working with objects, etc. and varying differences in functionality. I personally feel it would be a waste of time to learn several languages which are all object-oriented or all procedural, simply because the complexity of programming doesn't come from syntax, it comes from how the programmer thinks about the situation mentally. If you understand the concept of object-oriented programming (or any other paradigm), then the switch between languages should not be rough, and IMO is not something that should be a large focus.

    In terms of my opinions on the school -- I have very mixed feelings. The founder of the school is an ass and completely bastardized the freshman year's courses by "dumming down" courses and adding a "game maker" to one of the classes in an attempt to lower the dropout rate. I also dislike the current setup of making a game in a group every semester, mostly just in 1st year. I say this because 1st year, people still have VERY different levels of experience in C and C++ and so if you know what you're doing, you have to either do the whole project by yourself, or not use advanced features of the language just because the rest of the group doesn't understand, and you have to put up with inexperienced coding problems on the project. Most of the time ends up being spent on problems which would never happen in an environment where everyone was of similar ability (IE working in a group on a professional game). I've thought about leaving at the end of this semester, but I still have hope that things get better in later years. If you come, and know the languages, then try to test out of them. In fact, try to test out of all the freshman CS classes if you can, as they are turning sour.

    If you aren't very experienced, then the first year probably won't be as bad, but it's seemed like a waste for me, though I don't know if it would have been any better had I gone somewhere else. Mr. Wizard is a sophmore/junior, so he probably can give you a better view of what the school is like later on. Supposedly it gets better, so if you hold out through the first year, you should be fine.

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    I dont' know what to say, I dont' think any school will really capture my attention in the first year, simply because me and a lot of other people my age already have too much experience with C and C++. The best we can do is test out of as many courses as possible, and to do something that really shows how much we know (in my case if I could write a full functional bsp compiler from .map files, that would really knock the socks off of a lot of people I think).

    The biggest reason I want to go to Digipen is for the classes like Ray tracing and the one on surface modelling using calculus...you just dont' get things like that anywhere else, and I want to be surrounded with other dorks that are willing to put up with the work (I mean if you get as far as ray tracing you probably aren't going to drop out, right?)

    Poly, what have you done for yoru group projects? Aren't you only supposed to do text based games your first year? How many other people have more or less the same experience as you in programming? (how many people at digipen are complete newbies)

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    cereal killer dP munky's Avatar
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    >>how many people at digipen are complete newbies
    i'll tell ya i was, i mean, i went to a tech school before digipen and had to do some c++ as part of my computer curriculum but i didnt really have a handle on it, if you have a good basic base for programming, your first year will be more boring than challenging, really, but if youre like me and only knew hello world and couldnt tell you what an abstract data type was with a gun to my head, you'll have a challenging 1st year, i did ok, but a lot of peole quit because they think digipen is a game design school, where the reverse is true, its a programming school, a lot of other people quit because they think "hmmm, major in video games" and come here expecting to get to play duck hunt all day long

    i wont speak for him but i'll tell ya what i've observed....
    poly is a genius no doubt, just a genius, the guy is at LEAST a 3rd year student, i mean the guy could explain anything in the damn stroustrup book to you for hours and we hadnt even started classes and he had made some rotating 3d box(while i struggle trying to figure out how to convert celcius to ferenhieght) and to me, he seems bored, like he said, if you can test out, you dont wanna be so bored you just start skipping classes n' such....if you are that far ahead GOOD, but come here, do good, and keep learning more stuff, even if dP doesnt teach it because of the way digipen has lessened the learning curve, guys like me have a chance to get in while guys like poly are bored out of their mind until the end of the 2nd year...PM him and find out he'll tell ya
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    Crazy Fool Perspective's Avatar
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    Originally posted by Silvercord
    The biggest reason I want to go to Digipen is for the classes like Ray tracing and the one on surface modelling using calculus...you just dont' get things like that anywhere else,
    thats not true. courses like that are available at my university and id imagine they are available at others. im not tryin to knock DP, it seems like my type of place. im just pointing that out. next year ill be taking cmput411 - computer graphics, we cover ray tracing and all that good stuff. in my fourth year ill take cmput 498 - geometric computing, which covers advanced techniques for working with models and all kinds of cool stuff.

    Non-procedural languages? C++ of course! If you meant do they teach languages which FORCE non-procedural programming (IE java), then no
    well, java and c++ both fall in the OOP catagory, what i meant was languages like LISP and Sicstus Prolog.

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    Well if I do get in I know who I'll be paying to get my homework done (Poly need some dinero?)

    I still honestly believe college is just like...well...I dunno kind of a myth in a lot of ways...I don't think it's necessarily necessary, in most cases it just proves you have discipline (this comes from my father who has taken graduate courses...he said he's learned more from each of the 2 week seminars he takes every year in New York than from 8 years of college education). Digipen seems like a good school to go to because it seems more specialized than your run of the mill computer science program. 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 ).

    Ok well munky I'm anxious to see what Digipen looks like...and...I smell money, hmm. 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?)

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    cereal killer dP munky's Avatar
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    >>is Poly going to beat me up and take my lunch money when my ray tracing program doesn't work?
    lol, if only, he's so little it wouldnt matter. nah, if anything he'd stand over your shoulder for 3 hours trying to help... i havent run into any jerks, there are a lot of guys here that are ahead of the curve...but i dont think i've heard one be a dick about it...like "ha ha, you dont know how to pass by reference" er some bullpoop like that

    the absolute worst thing about it here(if you dont have a significant other)....the damn rain
    guns dont kill people, abortion clinics kill people.

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