   Know of any good online game-(design, programming, art, etc ) colleges?
  With the state I am in my life ( I'd rather not explain it here for it is personal ) I believe it will be tons of stress of my chest if I could attend a game-(designing, developing, etc ) college online. I've looked up some but I had a gut feeling that I might be ripped off by the college or something. So, have you attended an online college in these categories that got you a good job in your field?I'm thinking of just going with game design since I love programming, drawing, animating, composing, and coming up with ideas. So heck why not all combined?: design. I believe I need to focus on designing because I over complicate my work most of the time.If any more info is needed, please let me know. I feel as if this topic was vague. Ah well. Thanks![Edited by - PCN on April 27, 2009 10:24:17 PM]
  Input is always nice. :D   ;  I haven't attended this college yet (I'm too young), but when I get out of high school, I plan on going to the University of Advancing Technology (UAT). They have a completely online degree, and you can get either a Bachelor or Associate degree (you can also get a masters, but I'm not sure if that part is online) with majors in areas like Game Design, Game Art and Animation, Game Programming... Also, most of the professors have worked in the industry. When I visited, they told me that they have a 92% placement rate for students  graduating with a Game Programming degree (I didn't ask about the others).Website You could also check out gameinstitute.com. You can get credit for certain colleges there, and it's cheap, but it probably isn't the same as a real college/university.[Edited by - Alatar on August 2, 2009 3:12:53 AM];  Hey, thanks man! This may be what I was looking for.   ;  Why, specifically, do you want to attend a college? If you're doing your stuff online, why not just learn by yourself for free?   ;  Well, that was my original plan but I get bombarded by family and school "that's not how the real world works" and blahbady-blahbady-blah.Besides, there are a few skills that could use some sharpening and I'm sure I could learn a few things or two. Also, I'd like to be able to get a solid job in the fields if game developing ( and by "solid" I'm basing this term of the average stabilization of the US economy right now ).   ;  Game design degrees are almost exclusively crap. If you absolutely want a degree, get a traditional degree in something that interests you besides computers and go with that.Being self-taught is not at all rare; in fact I'd go so far as to say that if you don't have at least a modicum of self-teaching motivation, you're not going to make it in the industry, because keeping up with constantly changing technology is mandatory. You'll be expected to learn on the job to some extent anyways, so why not get into that habit from day one?Getting a job isn't about what degree you have. Getting a job is about your portfolio. If you spend three years attending a rip-off game design program that teaches you nothing vital for the actual field (this is not an exaggeration) then you just lost three years and a lot of money and you're no closer to the job. If you spend those same three years working on your own projects and building a solid portfolio, hey presto you get a job, aren't in tens of thousands of dollars of school debt, and amazingly you actually have the relevant skills [wink]Remember, when you ask for life advice - and especially career advice - it's much wiser to ask people who have already done what you want to do. They probably know the truth a little better than someone who is entirely unaware of the realities of the industry [wink]   ;  In a seperate direction of thought, consider taking some courses that would give you some team management skills, the basics of running your own company, or marketing.  At the very least, management skills are transferable to whatever job you find.  Or maybe you can use those skills to make some money from a few of your own projects and invest that money into tools or resources for future projects.   ;  Hi there PCN,Being a designer myself with about 2 years experience and a shipped game. I would advice that you pursue a games development position in one of two ways.- First is to aim for a level design position and self-teach yourself environmental design skills both practical and theory. What that translates to is getting a copy of a popular level editing tool like hammer or unrealED and create some fun to play levels. I stress quality over quantity with this though. A developer can get a good idea that you're a talented level designer from looking over 1 refined and detailed map that includes things like a well maintained weekly work journal and pre-production documentation with diagrams/drawn maps.Do a few years in level design; learn from the studios game designers. There are, oddly enough things that you really just can't learn in game development from a book or online course. I'm mostly referring to workflow, positive work habits and the like.It took myself 9 months of intense 40hour a week folio work to land me my first industry gig. But as opposed to taking a 20hour a week 3 year long course that could lead me to nothing useful, I stand by my choices to self teach. I'm doing it again now with a design portfolio.- The 2nd way will take longer, but comes with advantages. Do a at the university 4 year bachelors in a well-known creative field like Art or something business related. You do this for the following reasons:a) Social interaction. Understand this; working in your room 40 hours a week is not advised if you want to maintain a healthy social life, people generally think your ether closed in or just fucking around doing nothing, you may know better but they wont, and you will probably suffer socially for it. By attending a university you'll get the chance to sharpen your presentation and social skills, which for a design are a MUST have. If you have trouble talking to people, consider another job.b) Opened opportunities. If you get bachelors this will give you a much, much easier time if you wish to move to another country later on in life, people in the game industry do this often. Because I’m self educated I have to embarrassingly tell the government that game design doesn't require a qualification, to which they'll happily deny my work visa for what exact point. Designers are, government classification wise very ‘iffy’ on the skilled workers listing.If you get a bachelors, immigration will generally welcome you as a skilled worker.c) Life experience: I skipped university myself. And now that I’ve worked full time I can't see myself to education for the moment being, even though I’m working from home on a non-paid folio I’m burning up to 60 hours a week on it. University, like someone’s 21st birthday is something you only really get to experience once. If you want to bypass that, that's fine. Just keep that in mind. :)Lastly I’d strongly suggest NOT taking an online course, One of the main draws of education is getting tutorage and advice from experienced individuals face to face in a friendly environment who aren’t expecting you to be 100% perfect, unlike commercial work in which any flaws in you will be exposed and crushed. If you go online your effectively removing the aspect of education you want to pay money for. It's overall just illogical to do it online unless you're a million miles away from any sort of university and have no alternative.I hope this all helps you. :)Cheers,Chris Watts;  Thank you for your reply. This have given me much more insight on game designing.I have many reasons for why I chose design:1) I'm self taught C++ programmer. I'm no professional but I'm not sloppy either. ( No globals floating around at the top of my source document. That was four years ago. :] )I can code nearly anything that I need for a game.2) I'm a self-taught artist/animator ( 2D ). Like my programming skills, I am not a professional, but I am getting noticeably better every day. In fact, I will be picking up an $80 check soon for an animation I did recently. I do not plan to lurk in the realms of 3D. I'll leave that to others.3) I'm a self-taught composer. Like my artistic abilities and programming, I am not an expert but I believe I am pretty darn good at my age and being that I self-taught myself. In fact, my band director asked if he could conduct some of my work for my band so we could play it.4) Although I believe I can make a really good game by myself, I have terrible designing skills. For instance, I'll take a simple game idea and over complicate it. It's not too complicated to take on as a group, but it becomes too large of a project by myself. I have good ideas though.I love programming, spriting, and composing. So instead of focusing on just one, I figured designing a game in general would, in a sense, combine them all. ( I'm not saying that I expect to learn all of those topics but hopefully you understand what I am trying to get at )So...If anyone has any more input to help me, that would be fantastic. Thank you.[Edited by - PCN on May 2, 2009 3:27:35 PM]