Ok, maybe I don't understand the terminology. You think some drone working in HR is going to understand it better than me? Yes, they SHOULD, but many simply do not. I take it you didn't even bother reading my linked comments on slashdot - you will see idiot gatekeepers are rife.

15 years down the line when you decide to change career paths, digipen aren't going to be there to bypass the morons for you. You have to do it off your own resume. If your resume looks weird and quirky, that makes it difficult to get past morons.

Another link for you:
http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1779942&cid=33502808

Why is everyone so mad though?

15 years down the road you'll have 15 years of industry experience? Sure you can put where you graduated, but that isn't going to matter hardly at all compared to putting down your achievements. The greatest part about the school is you have 2-3 years of simulated industry experience and have massive projects (i.e. whole games coded from scratch) to carry along with you to list in that whole "accomplishment" area of your resume. You just have some sort of negative bias towards the school because it sounds too good to be true, in my opinion.

Lol. Yeah, that school "sounds too good to be true" so I have a "negative bias towards" it. If anything I'd say you've got and overly positive bias towards it and therefore are unwilling to even listen to anyone who suggests that maybe it isn't all it's cracked up to be (especially if you're suggesting it as a general CS degree as opposed to a specific gaming one).

All I'm pointing out is that while the school and what they teach you may actually be fine, you are somewhat cutting down your potential employment future because the bald fact is that there are many idiots out there who are in charge of hiring and they can't handle things slightly out of their expectations.

Would you want to work for these companies if they hire idiot HR people? Some of them, yes, because often the corporate structure and rules are such that all hiring is handled through HR and software have no control over it, but the software department itself is actually a wonderful place to work. Other companies that have bullshit hiring practices will also be horrible to work at for the same reason. Then you get recruitment companies (as several of those comments are talking about) who are hired by companies that you might really want to work for, but because of the idiot gatekeepers you never get a look in.

Again, read the comments on slashdot. Don't count on your 15 years of experience helping you to get a job if the people screening your resume don't know that 10 years of C++ is directly transferable to Java, and therefore throw you on the scrap heap because you "don't know java".

Simiarly maybe someone who is screening resumes has 5 minutes to look at each one. They look at your skills and think they're quite good, but have never heard of DigiPen before. So they google it and the first result says this:
"DigiPen: A Leader in Game Development Education: Home
Bachelor's degree programs in Video Game Programming, Game Design, Animation, and Computer Engineering. Master's in Computer Science."
They immediately conclude that because this isn't a games programming job that you automatically aren't an appropriate candidate, and so throw your resume out.

As much as you might like to hope that this sort of thing doesn't happen, it DOES. Sticking your hands in your ears and saying "I don't believe you" doesn't help you get a job at the end of the day. You should be aware of the risks you are taking for whatever university you decide to get a degree from. Similarly there are companies that will throw your resume out if you didn't go to an Ivy League school - that's why people go there if they can manage it, because it improves their future chances of employment.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Mar 11 2011, 10:30 pm by Lanthanide.

Okay sure, but saying that "therefor the degree name will hinder you" is ridiculous.

Read my latest edit.

I'd also point out that name recognition of your institution cuts both ways. If you are applying for a job at a game development company, they might look through your experience and think "great", and then they see that you went to DigiPen. If this company respects digipen, you'll probably get brownie points for it. Or if this company has had a bad history of digipen graduates then they might take some brownie points off.

Where you got your degree from matters. To pretend it doesn't is to deny the existence of prestigious universities, Ivy League schools and in fact the entire point of this post. He's asking what university to go to, both because of it's name/reputation and for how good the actual course itself is.

I've been overlooked or passed up before because the last part of my degree name is "international business." I'll probably shorten it from "Bachelor's of Science in Business Administration: Emphasis in International Business" to simply "Bachelor's of Science in Business Administration" because recruiters have been thrown off by the International Business aspect. I have the same qualifications as pretty much any other business admin majors, but companies have told me that the reason they pass me on is because they don't operate internationally, or something similar. So it can happen.

Yip, I think that's more appropriate for a resume anyway. Having really really long titles makes people think you've got a very very narrow education, and if it's in an area that they think is funny or strange it can put them right off. Mentioning the international business emphasis would be more naturally placed for the job interview(s), if it seems like it is something important for that particular employer, otherwise don't mention it.

Of course you should tailor your resume to each company and job you apply for. Some companies may be much more interested if you specifically list your international emphasis in the resume - I can imagine a company that is looking to grow and expand into new markets (even if they didn't mention this in their job ad) might find the add-on quite interesting. In the interviews you could ask leading questions in that direction - what is your company's plan for expansion in the future, if it sounds positive you could then mention your international business emphasis.

Honestly I was surprised that my degree name was so long. I didn't realize International Business was a sub section of Business Administration.

Cecil, Lanthanide, stop arguing, this isn't SD
http://www.utexas.edu/student/admissions/ugdegrees.html

How come Computer Science is listed under the College of Natural Sciences, and Software Engineering is listed under Electrical Engineering under the Cockrell School of Engineering? Which one is better to take? Are there internships easily available at UT?

Is it worth it do take the dual BS/MS 5-year program, or just shave off the fifth year and get a bachelor's in software engineering? Are there internships easily available at RIT?

During his overnight visit, Voy succeeded in beating down several campus officers with only a a large salami, arm wrestled a bear that was in the nearby woods -- and won. He then proceeded to get a cab, take it apart, and re-assemble it in the dean's office. With the meter running the entire time.

Although he may claim his choice of RIT to be one of cost, Carnegie has ordered him to be shot on sight.

A BS in SE is probably going to take you 5 years at RIT anyway, without overloading on courses or taking summer courses. There's 4 years of class and you also need to take a year of co-op as well... Now you can take co-ops during your summers, but you'll have to wait until at least the end of 2nd year for prereqs. tl; dr no one gets the BS in 4 years.

I don't know much about the BS/MS program. I'm just getting a BS.

There are a number of interships around, plus as I said, you're going to be doing co-ops, so you're going to have at least a year of industry experience (and if you do good work, job offers) in several companies. There's always some employer (usually Microsoft or Google) around holding seminars, and I know people who have gone to them and been flat out told, look, here's a problem to solve, if you succeed, here's a position over the summer.


There were certainly non-monetary reasons for my choice.

Check INVENTORY for something concealing. Then proceed to COMMANDEER a FIRE HYDRANT.

I am going to Null right now to make a Voy adventure game.

Science deals with theories, research, and new ideas. Engineering deals with application of science. So computer science is more about developing new stuff, but electrical/computer/software engineering is more about applying the newly developed stuff in practical ways.

That said, there's a difference between software engineering and software development.
Software development is more prevalent and they hire computer scientists, engineers, mathematicians, physicists. When employers look for potential employees for this position, they don't necessarily care about the specific skills or knowledge you've acquired in school; they want to know how good your critical/creative thinking skills are (because if you are good at that, you can easily learn any new language). Software engineering engineering may be similar to development but the key is that engineering is a lot about ethics and knowing how to exist concomitantly with the real world's demands and needs. Sure you can come up with a great design, but is this design cost efficient? Applicable to the client? No matter what engineering discipline you are, you will learn how to deal with the real world.

The difference between the two isn't too vast and their tasks often overlap, but to answer your question, UT is very well known for it's engineering programs (so is Computer Science, but one would typically think about another school if they want top tier computer science). I'd say Electrical/Computer Engineering is the better path to take. Every semester, we have what's called an Engineering Career Expo where hundreds of companies from all over the world come to do recruiting. Whether it's internships, co-ops, or full-time jobs, engineers IMO have a much easier time finding opportunities so yes internships are easily available. Computer Scientists don't have such an event so typically they're on their own in their job hunts but even if you do computer science, it'll be just as equally a good choice but not as prestigious as an engineering degree from UT.

I am an engineer myself so I may be a bit biased, but to quote a shirt many of us wear:
"Scientists dream about doing great things. Engineers do them."

Post has been edited 3 time(s), last time on Mar 12 2011, 3:00 am by MillenniumArmy.

ME FIRST!

Oh, ray, one more thing I forgot to add, and I think it's really important:

Between EE and CS students at UT, the former in general have a much more arduous and studious life. You won't find a single EE that hasn't once complained about how much work they have to do every day or week. The EE curriculum not only involves a lot of programming/software work but also a good amount of circuits and hardware stuff - most students fall prefer one category or another so they will almost never be satisfied when faced with the other.

CS students on the other hand don't complain about their school work; many of then just love spending their lives in front of fluorescent lighting late at night. They also say it's significantly easier to get A's in their courses. I'm a Civil Engineering Major with a minor in Computer Science and IMO the computer science courses are easier than all of the engineer classes I've taken - mainly because I'd much rather do school work on a computer than by pencil and paper. I even had friends who dropped out of EE and pursued CS instead.

Again it doesn't matter too much if you have a CS or EE if you want to do software stuff. Most of the stuff you learn in school will rarely ever be used in the working world. Employers want to see that you have a good GPA, especially if it's interns they are looking for.

Oh...on the overnight stay thing. A school may not have an official one, but schools do allow it. It has to do with dorm allowances. If you know of an alumni from your school that is going to those schools, you could probably stay the night of your visit with them - or sometimes the recruitment office (what is it called again? Prospectives?) will set you up with one of the people on work study.

I believe the popular term is codemonkeying

I guess I'll just say that in my experience, what MA said is spot on. Electrical Engineering is much more difficult; we don't have a computer science major at my college, but the Electrical Engineering stuff is... a lot of work. At the same time, it's also likely to be much more rewarding.

I'd recommend going for the 5-year MS program. I don't have a lot of experience with this, but I'm under the impression that a MS would give you a large boost in the eyes of employers (and you'd know a lot more), and considering that it'd only take you a year to get... get it. But, again, if you pick EE, you'll likely have a ton of work to do.

Cecil, I strongly doubt that Digipen has a lot of industry connections with non-gaming companies. Just sayin'. Stop plugging it everywhere where it doesn't apply. Nimagi mentioned nothing about wanting to program games, and there's absolutely nothing special about Digipen in the software engineering department.