Educational Feature: ‘10 Myths About Game Degrees’

Dr. Andrew Tuson, head of the Department of Computing at City University London has heard his fair share of misconceptions about what it means to be a game development student, and what happens to students upon graduation. In a new GameCareerGuide.com article, Tuson debunks 10 such myths:

1. Game degrees are easy – students play games all day!
2. There are few jobs in the game industry.
3. Game companies prefer graduates from ‘traditional’ disciplines…
4. …and no one else will want to employ games graduates!
5. All you’ll do is testing.
6. You can learn on the job, no degree required.
7. Your job will be outsourced to India, China, or (insert country of current economic paranoia here).
8. Game programming degrees are more valued than game design degrees (or vice-versa).
9. Game programming degrees produce hackers and nerds.
10. Universities are only in it for the money!

Originally educated as a chemist at Oxford, Tuson switched gears to study artificial intelligence at Edinburgh University, and later helped to establish City University London’s BSc (Hons) Computer Science with Games Technology and MSc Computer Games Technology degrees. His own mixed background, including that of an educator, illustrates how a person with game programming know-how isn’t limited to one field of work. “Are there jobs for people with computer game degrees, outside the industry? Our experience at City University London is that game graduates find it as easy to find employment as our other computing graduates,” writes Tuson. “There are two reasons for this. “First, many graduate jobs are available to students of any discipline. Employers value the intellectual skills of good graduates, no matter what the area of study. “Second, many of the topics covered in a game degree are relevant to other industries. Consider a computer science-focused game degree. These degrees are programming-intensive and provide coverage of C++ and software engineering methods that are needed in the mainstream IT industry. Other applications of a technically-focused game degree include simulation, visualization, and scientific computing.” To find out why the nine other misconceptions don’t hold much water, see “10 Myths about Game Degrees” on GameCareerGuide.com.