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By: Martin Pichlmair/2011/05/09/thoughts-on-university-education/#comment-3783 Martin Pichlmair Tue, 10 May 2011 08:16:39 +0000 Nice post Martin, I like the sound of 'Designeers'. It's nice to see there is a need for such people, I feel that's a direction I'd much rather head than pure programmer; it's incredibly frustrating in a larger company when you have no influence over the design of the thing you're implementing! I agree with Bobby and Midpipps. Not sure what can be done about the financial vs academic conflict of interests for university, that's beyond the games industry. However, if the universities are in position where they have to shape their curriculum purely to potential students' demands then industry needs to inform the students what those demands should be. I'm a student nearing the end of a placement / intern year, (in the UK) just to put my views in context. "Maybe the iPhone4 is a tad to expensive for a student but considered mandatory equipment nevertheless." - that was great :) Nice post Martin, I like the sound of ‘Designeers’. It’s nice to see there is a need for such people, I feel that’s a direction I’d much rather head than pure programmer; it’s incredibly frustrating in a larger company when you have no influence over the design of the thing you’re implementing!

I agree with Bobby and Midpipps. Not sure what can be done about the financial vs academic conflict of interests for university, that’s beyond the games industry. However, if the universities are in position where they have to shape their curriculum purely to potential students’ demands then industry needs to inform the students what those demands should be.
I’m a student nearing the end of a placement / intern year, (in the UK) just to put my views in context.

“Maybe the iPhone4 is a tad to expensive for a student but considered mandatory equipment nevertheless.” – that was great :)

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By: Midpipps/2011/05/09/thoughts-on-university-education/#comment-3772 Midpipps Mon, 09 May 2011 17:44:08 +0000 I actually completely agree. Most of my programming knowledge is self taught. Most of the languages I've worked in, I've never had any formal training in and all this despite my 9 years of eduction at a top university. One of the main problems is that a lot of students go in with no idea what they need and yet have strange demands and metrics for their course. I've heard students complain that our computer science degree was useless since it doesnt ever cover C# and only focuses on C++ and Java. Students expect universities to TRAIN them for their future jobs, that they should be able to step out of a degree problem and straight into a job without any extra training. I think for a large part universities are trying to cater to students' needs and tend to treat students as clients rather than what they are: students. If the course is too hard students complain, the lecturer gets "disciplined" and the standard is lower just to keep the clients happy. Performance bonuses are paid out depending on the student rating of the lecturers, obviously, the easy the course is and the less the course work given the higher the rating and the bigger the bonus. Any courses with high failure rates result in lecturers being chastised. Its all a big joke. Another problem is in how universities attracts students. They tend to create these half-assed "buzz word" degree programs that are for the most part absolutely useless being taught by lecturer with no experience in the subject. I think the current buzz word is "game design" where around a decade ago it was "computer engineering". I'd be curious to see in around a decade how many of the "gaem design" degree programs will still exist. That being said, I also think that a university education is absolutely essential, a lot of self taught programmers might have silly little gaps in their knowledge that they've never been exposed to. I think the best is to have a solid math based language agnostic computer science program. Teach students how to think logically not just the syntax of a language. Exposed them to various fields and technologies. Broaden their perspectives. University is supposed to expand your horizons not train you for a specific job. just my random ranty 2c I actually completely agree. Most of my programming knowledge is self taught. Most of the languages I’ve worked in, I’ve never had any formal training in and all this despite my 9 years of eduction at a top university. One of the main problems is that a lot of students go in with no idea what they need and yet have strange demands and metrics for their course. I’ve heard students complain that our computer science degree was useless since it doesnt ever cover C# and only focuses on C++ and Java. Students expect universities to TRAIN them for their future jobs, that they should be able to step out of a degree problem and straight into a job without any extra training.

I think for a large part universities are trying to cater to students’ needs and tend to treat students as clients rather than what they are: students. If the course is too hard students complain, the lecturer gets “disciplined” and the standard is lower just to keep the clients happy. Performance bonuses are paid out depending on the student rating of the lecturers, obviously, the easy the course is and the less the course work given the higher the rating and the bigger the bonus. Any courses with high failure rates result in lecturers being chastised. Its all a big joke.

Another problem is in how universities attracts students. They tend to create these half-assed “buzz word” degree programs that are for the most part absolutely useless being taught by lecturer with no experience in the subject. I think the current buzz word is “game design” where around a decade ago it was “computer engineering”. I’d be curious to see in around a decade how many of the “gaem design” degree programs will still exist.

That being said, I also think that a university education is absolutely essential, a lot of self taught programmers might have silly little gaps in their knowledge that they’ve never been exposed to. I think the best is to have a solid math based language agnostic computer science program. Teach students how to think logically not just the syntax of a language. Exposed them to various fields and technologies. Broaden their perspectives. University is supposed to expand your horizons not train you for a specific job.

just my random ranty 2c

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