<p>I want to get into game design/development for a career, as in the programming, technical side of games, and I'm applying for schools at the moment.
USC is one of the more bigger and better schools for game design apparently so I'm applying there, but I don't know which specific college at USC I should apply to.</p>
<p>There's the USC Viterbi School of Engineering and then there's the USC School of Cinematic Arts. Instinct tells me I should choose Viterbi because development requires programming, which is a part of Computer Science, which is offered at Viterbi. But I have a friend who has the same career in mind as me and also applying to USC, except he's dead set on applying to School of Cinematic Arts, and he usually knows his stuff, which confused me on why he would do that even though he wants to do programming like me. Now I'm indecisive.</p>
<p>Anyone who knows about these two schools at USC, and even better if you have experience with or actually attending one of these schools for game design, which school should I apply to for my career interest?</p>
<p>Major in CS and take a few electives in graphics, user interfaces, physics (mechanics), and art/animation in addition to the usual useful courses like algorithms/complexity, operating systems, networks, software engineering, security, and databases.</p>
<p>That way, you’ll be able to seek computer game jobs, but if you don’t land any, or decide to get out of the game industry, you’ll be able to seek jobs in the much larger overall computer software industry.</p>
<p>@davidthefat, thanks for the share, but I’ve seen the video already and I’m well aware of the sweatshop conditions that many people in the game industry have. I’m still passionate about working in the game industry as a programmer though. Maybe I’ll change my mind if or when I actually start working, but for now, I don’t really seem to care. Have to admit though, I do sound almost as naive as the kid in the video from what I said here, haha.</p>
<p>@ucbalumnus yeah, that’s actually what I intend on doing; getting a degree in CS, but with focus in game development so that I won’t be completely stuck to the game industry if I do decide to change my mind.</p>
<p>And for my original question, I’m assuming it’s implied that I should apply to the USC’s Viterbi School of Engineering, not Cinematic Arts. Am I correct in doing so?</p>
<p>If CS is in Engineering, then apply there. Apply to Cinematic Arts only if your primary intended major is there (it would be odd if CS were there).</p>
<p>All computer science majors at USC are in the Viterbi School of Engineering, including the Computer Science (Games) one. Cinematic Arts does have many animation/modeling type courses though, which is very relevant to video game design.</p>
<p>I have some experience with animation, so I did also consider animation as well, but I think computer science would be more appropriate for me. Thanks for providing the source though, I really should’ve looked somewhere as obvious as the university’s actual website for information.</p>