On Game Schools - Extra Credits

Overlord

I just wanted to share a video from Extra Credits about game schools.

http://penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/on-game-schools

I only wish this had been around before I got suckered into one of those shady schools.

artstream

I think with this video, all the game threads could be compiled into a sticky at this point. It might help to curtail the "Should I go to this school" threads that pop up every few weeks months.

Bigjohn

Great video. I wish it had come out back in the day when I went to schools.

I wanna add one correction. There's a part where he's talking about regional vs. national accreditation. He correctly identifies it as regional accreditation being better than national. But it's actually much more than that. The fact is that those are two separate systems. One, the regional, is what the government here uses to accredit universities. The other, the national, is what they use to accredit an institution that can pretty much just teach anything they fucking want.

The two don't mesh! A regional school, which is pretty much every state university in the country, will not accept any credits from a national school. I actually believe that the regional and national terms are purposefully misleading. You'd think National > Regional.

I know this first hand because I graduated from an Art Institute, and most of those, mine included, are nationally accredited. I wanted to go on and get a Masters in Computer Science. No university in the country would accept even a single credit from the Art Institute. And trust me, I've tried. I went to all sorts of universities from both coasts and couldn't get anywhere. It was so bad that when I found out that some AIs are regionally accredited, I thought I could go there instead, but even AI itself wouldn't accept its own credits!

So the national vs. regional thing is pretty dire. It's not just a matter of one being better than the other, which it is also, but they're not even compatible.

gsokol

You'd think National > Regional

Yea I got duped on this when I went I picked a school as well. I'm really kicking myself in the ass for it. I wish I had somebody around to tell me what was up before I wasted so much money and time when there were many better alternatives.

That video sums things up pretty well I think.

skylebones

That was actually a pretty good video with some decent advice.

Weirdboy

Yeah, the Extra Credits folks are very good at what they do.

Soul_of_Solace

This is indeed a very informative video and should probably be required viewing for anyone even getting the idea of thinking about going to school to work in the game industry.

And yeah, I wish such a resource had been around 8-9 years ago when I made such a blunder, and I've at least managed to work at companies like EA (and at least think that I had several of the "good" kind of teachers who weren't just drones). But employment is spotty for everyone now, so the kids going to these schools or graduating right now are in real trouble.