Mayaterror summed it up well. A lot of going to school is a roll of the dice unless you do the homework to make sure you get the most bang for your time and money. There are some schools that can prepare you, there are some that don't do such a good job. Some students are good enough they can flourish in any environment,…
Design, art, programing, management? You're holding up a big umbrella there by saying "Game Design" and a lot of things take shelter under that umbrella. All of them have their pros and cons and school factors in differently. It really depends on what your goals are. I find that most people find a school that meets their…
As far as I understand it: diploma mills like DeVry and Westwood or whatever are going to be generally "ineffective" no matter how you slice it. But as for the "effective" game design schools, I think it depends on your idea of effectiveness: for production and career placement, I hear Digipen and Guildhall are good... but…
I teach game design at an institution that has not yet been mentioned here. I fully agree with most of these posts - for $70K - $80K for a Bachelor's is outrageous - I got my Master's from a traditional university for less than $30K - less than a decade ago. However, my degree is not in "Game Design" but in "Technology,"…
I've noticed this as well; I thought at first that it was only my impression though. More so, I've been browsing through job postings on Gamasutra a while ago and I've noticed that some of them had game design degrees listed as either requirement or benefit. While I'm sure that most of these courses do not meet industry's…
I had applied to a game design course last year, and while the reputation of the school was quite good, it seemed as though grads coming out of the program had been taught with more of a 'jack of all trades' approach. It wasn't specifically dedicated to any one career path, and that's where I think it could potentially…
I'll agree with you. I did a 3 year game degree. My course director at the time had no idea what he was doing, never worked at a single game studio.. never even worked on a game as far as I know. Every time I look at my degree I laugh and shake my head. If your going to pursue a game design course. Do your self a favor and…
Part of the issue is the relative immaturity of the video game industry. It's only existed for about thirty years or so. And its development throughout those thirty years has been incredibly rapid. Game development today is almost nothing like it was when games were first being developed. Because of this, there are…
While I do agree with some of the things said in this thread and all games courses have their share of problems, there are some positives. I'm currently on my first year of games design at Northumbria University. While I am not learning anything I haven't already knew, for a vast amount of people this is a first contact…
There are very very few degree programs worth their weight, 99% of them are taught by people not in the industry with old information you can readily get elsewhere on the net for free or via sites like gnomon, digitaltutors, eat3d, etc... none of the schools out there are worth $70k to $100k+ for a degree in games. It's…