   Pet project (c#/xna) vs school projects(C++)
  I have taken a long hiatus from programming basic games and instead focused more on school work.  My pet projects were always c# and xna but now in school we are using c and c++.  My professor says we will be using it for the bulk of my time there.  Do you think it would be wise to continue with my pet projects with the basics of xna or would it be better to go with the more difficult path(well at least to me) and go with c++ and its windowed api's.  I know i can do both but it seems like it may be harder to try to master both xna and C++ at the same time. Do you think the ease of xna and c# help counteract studying more advanced c++ and other c++ windowed apis?Thanks   
  You don't have a choice w.r.t to what your school requires, I assume, so you are stuck with that. But you should not allow that to impact your decision about the language(s) you use on your own time.A good programmer will know multiple languages and be able to switch between them. If you feel like you would stumble every so often switching back and forth, then that is a good reason to expose yourself to that scenario and learn to cope with it. It will only make you a better developer.   ;  Switching between languages is not as bad as it sounds at first. My school started off using x86 assembler (not a good idea) then moved to C++. While I study a lot of C++ I also study Objective-C and Cocoa for iPhone developement. I can switch between them all quite easily. All the concepts are the same for the most part across languages its just the syntax that may hang you up here or there.   