Best Colleges for Game Development/ Game Programming

<p>What are the best colleges for this field?</p>

<p>I heard good things about Digipen.</p>

<p>USC has a program.....</p>

<p>+1 for Digipen.</p>

<p>RIT - I know someone in the masters program there, but there is a bachelors as well...</p>

<p>[url=<a href="http://games.rit.edu%5Dgames.rit.edu%5B/url"&gt;http://games.rit.edu]games.rit.edu[/url&lt;/a&gt;]&lt;/p>

<p>Check out Full Sail U.</p>

<p>For an overall college experience, I think it would be tough to beat USC and its new Gamepipe Lab, USC</a> GamePipe Labs. In the Viterbi School of Engineering you can major in Computer Science with a Game emphasis USC</a> GamePipe Labs. (I have made statements similar to those below on other boards.)</p>

<ol>
<li><p>At USC you will work with students from other schools when you design games.
USC encourages double majors and also encourages interdisciplinary studies and cooperation between schools. For example, for last fall's "Demo Game Day," students from three schools worked together on teams to create video games. USC</a> Viterbi School of Engineering : Viterbi Game Day Builds USC Stature as National Center for Interactive Arts. Students came from the Viterbi School of Engineering, the Roski School of Fine Arts, and the School of Cinematic Arts. These were students "from computer science, interactive media, fine arts, animation, and composers from the School of Music."</p></li>
<li><p>USC works closely with industry to help place students.
For example, at the Demo Game Day I mentioned above the best of the best attended:</p></li>
</ol>

<p>
[quote]
Industry representation included Applied Minds, THQ, EA LA, EA Mobile, Activision, Northrup Grummann, Disney Interactive Studios, Digital Domain, Emsense, Disney VR Studios, Sony Online Entertainment, Sony Computer Enteratinmane of America, Steamboat Ventures, Blizzard, Google, Insomniac Games, Naughtdog Games, iSportGames, and Creative Artists Agency.

[/quote]
</p>

<ol>
<li><p>USC has the Viterbi School of Engineering and the great people there.
Though USC has around 16,000 undergraduates, the Viterbi School and the people there go out of their way to make you feel part of a much smaller group. They have activities for the engineering students and crazy contests which involve building concrete canoes and walking on water. (And yes, I mean literally!) They are also interested in all aspects of their engineering students, not just the math and science parts. For example, this past January the actor Alan Alda spent a day at the Viterbi School talking to the students about public speaking. </p></li>
<li><p>USC has many other things going for it.
The USC campus is beautiful and vibrant. The students S and I met were nice, friendly and came from all over the world as well as the US. Lots of sports activities for the participant and the spectator, lots of clubs and organizations (over 600), and lots of school spirit. USC also has great cultural events, great climate, and a great marching band!</p></li>
</ol>

<p>Good luck on your decision.</p>

<p>Case Western has a brand new program. Toured it with my son a few weeks ago. Looked pretty nice. It's not his thing but it might be worth checking out.</p>

<p>Both RPI & WPI have programs.</p>

<p>I recommend getting CS degree with a concentration or minor in game design, over a game design degree, more options and more marketable.</p>

<p>Full Sail near Disneyworld is reputed to be near or at the top of this field. It is not a traditional college set-up, however, and seems quite unique . It works on monthly cycles, where 2 classes are taken each month. There is no campus housing, or sports programs. It seems to in effect be a vocational school with every bell and whistle in each technical field, but little else. Students do not take general education classes like introductory writing, math. It is not regionall accredited, which means its credits (at least currently) do not transfer at other schools.</p>

<p>University of Central Florida is a good one. Electronic Arts Tiburon is based in Orlando and they hire a lot of UCF grads.</p>

<p>Check out the website. Electronic</a> Arts Tiburon</p>

<p>The most secure path would probably to get a traditional CS degree and find other ways to go about getting into the gaming community. I know at CMU there was a very active video game design club on campus that frequently had big names from the video game world come in to give speeches. Heh, one of my CompE friends actually used his CompE and CS skills to make a homemade joystick and programmed his own game as a project for a class. CMU's also got a lot of ties with Microsoft, so that's definitely a plus with how console gaming is looking right now.</p>

<p>UCSC also has a new gaming program</p>

<p>My HS sophomore son is interested in game design, so we are looking into some of the schools mentioned. While I would like him to do CS to have a broader (more practical in my mind) education, the programming aspect of games does not really interest him, he is more into the artistic and story parts of game design. So we may look more toward animation or graphic arts.</p>

<p>Princeton Review has listed the “Top 50 Undergraduate Game Design Programs”</p>

<p>[Top</a> 50 Game Design Programs](<a href=“http://www.princetonreview.com/game-design.aspx]Top”>2023 Top Game Design Schools | The Princeton Review)</p>

<p>Methodology used is described here - [Game</a> Design Survey Methodology](<a href=“http://www.princetonreview.com/game-design-survey-methodology.aspx]Game”>Top Game Design Methodology | Game Design Rankings | The Princeton Review)</p>

<p>And here is an article titled “Ranking the top game-design colleges” about this list from CNet
[Ranking</a> the top game-design colleges | Software, Interrupted - CNET News](<a href=“http://news.cnet.com/8301-13846_3-10461947-62.html]Ranking”>http://news.cnet.com/8301-13846_3-10461947-62.html)</p>

<p>Resurrecting this old thread because I can’t find the post where someone else posted this info…</p>

<p>Be sure Never to go to DeVry University for Game and Simulation Programming. We wasted $10,000 in 2 terms. They are the most unorganized college. They lock you out of classes, have no teacher interaction with the online courses and if you are locked out and the term ends (which is what happened with my son), you fail. He emailed his teacher 5 times to try to get the course opened and then the class ended. We got the heck out of that school and are in the process of reporting their bad business practice to the Better Business Bureau. We have since spoke to several large Technology firms and found out that they have a VERY BAD reputation in the Technology Industry. Too bad we did not have that information before we spent $10,000 for absolutely nothing.</p>

<p>[Division</a> of Communication and Creative Media](<a href=“http://www.champlain.edu/Division-of-Communication-and-Creative-Media.html]Division”>Division of Communication & Creative Media | Academics)</p>

<p>Champlain College, Burlington, VT, has Game Art & Animation, Game Design.</p>

<p>Hi,
I am going to apply in USC for game dev M.S program.Can anyone guide me how is the program and what exposure do we get.I am deeply interested in game dev feild , I have done my internship from GameLoft pvt.LTD</p>

<p>I’ve been accepted to the following schools and waiting to hear back from a few others. Trying to figure out which one is best overall. Thoughts from anyone who is currently in these programs would be appreciated.</p>

<p>ACCEPTED:
DigiPen
Becker College
Southern New Hampshire University</p>

<p>WAITING (chances of being accepted):
Drexel - wait-listed
Champlain - I think very good.
WPI - deferred from EA to regular admissions (50/50)
RIT (not sure)
Rensselear (not sure)
University of California - Santa Cruz (not sure)
Universtiy of California - Irvine (not sure)</p>