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Career and Future Advice
Schmoo
Registered User new member
Registered User new member
So this is the situation I find myself in. Sorry for the length; I didn't realize how long this was until I finished. You can skip to "Current" if it's too much.
The Story:
I'm 26, I have a Bachelor's Degree in Game Design and Development from Full Sail University that I received in June 2006, and I have, as of yet, found a full-time career. I had always wanted to make games. I originally attended the University of Texas San Antonio for 2 years as a CS major, but after talking with the department head and some advisers, they had doubts whether their CS program would help me at all. I looked everywhere to find a school, and I had found DigiPen and Full Sail, and due to family issues, I resolved to go to Full Sail since Florida was a lot closer than Seattle. The 2 years I spent at Full Sail were great; it's a great school that teaches a lot across a variety of subjects useful for game dev, and expects nothing but 100% from its students with its 16+ hour days 6 days a week. The summer following my graduation, I moved back home to begin my job search, but again due to family issues, I could only look in my home state of Texas, which at the time I didn't think was too bad, considering Texas has a high concentration of game programming jobs. I also had previously agreed with my dad that I would help him get his construction business off the ground if he cosigned my student loans (BTW, my student loans total over $100,000, because I'm a moron), so the first 9-12 months I spent building offices with my dad and doing some clerical and accounting stuff for him. The result: I looked for a job only in Texas, and not as extensively as I probably should have.
After my dad got his business up and I could fully divest myself from it, I went into overdrive. I applied everywhere I could, and while I had about 14 phone and face-to-face interviews over the span of 8 months with a lot of different companies across the US, I was never offered a job. However, when I had seemed to almost give up hope, a fellow classmate who worked at Midway Austin set up an interview for me, and eventually I was hired on. The entire process took about 6 weeks, and when I started, I trained for about 3 weeks; then the studio shut down. I spent more time packing up the offices and submitting documents to the Midway central servers than I did working on anything.
After that, I realized I had to get out of my home town and move somewhere and get any type of job to try to break the slump. My sister was in her 2nd year of residency in Houston and offered to let me live with here while I got myself situated. I took on a job at a popular hotel to help with my share of the bills, save up some money, and begin paying back my student loan. I was still actively looking for a job, and I decided to look outside game programming and look for all coding jobs. I soon realized that my absence from any professional work was a huge red flag for a lot of places I interviewed with, and I had/have no idea how to address or resolve this issue. The more time that passes, the more the problem is compounded and I really can't see an immediate way out of it. Once my sister finished her residency and her last year of being a poor doctor, she became a rich doctor and moved into a nice high-rise condo. I didn't want to inconvenience her anymore, so I moved out on my own with the money I had saved up.
That puts me where I am now: losing money at a crappy job with no discernible break in site.
There are a lot of things I really regret doing, and I can only blame them on myself, my naivete, and my zeal for gaming. I've tried to shift some blame onto others. I thought maybe Full Sail wasn't a wise choice, but all of my classmates have been able to find jobs at studios like Blizzard, Microsoft, Raven, and Vicarious Visions (the one quality I can fault Full Sail for is their career development advisor, who has been extremely unreachable and flaky, but even then, my friends got their jobs on their own). It's my own damn fault, I know now. If I could change anything, I could pick from any number of mistakes.
Current:
The impetus for this request is I just hit my 2nd anniversary at this damn hotel, which means I hit my 4th anniversary of graduating. 4 years of failure. Hooray! I make $11.75 an hour at a job which has no relevance to what I want to do, and it's a job I truly despise in all aspects. I'm not depressed . . . well, I probably am, but I'm not despairing, I'm just lost. I still have the drive and determination to eventually achieve my goals, it's just at this point I have absolutely no clue on what to do next. I have my rejection letters and emails printed out on my wall to remind me of what I need to overcome. I've started a small iPhone and Android business with a couple of buddies. I figure this can get my mind active again, as well as generate professional experience I can use on my resume for future job prospects, and it has the added bonus of maybe providing some income, as well.
However, now with the added expense of rent on top of my exorbitant student loan payments, I started losing money. I don't want to ask anyone for money, as I figure I'm old enough that my mistakes and circumstances shouldn't be inconveniencing others.
Options:
I've spent a lot of time thinking about my options, and while I know I need to do something, I can't decide on exactly what I should do.
1.) Keep working at the hotel at nights, and go back to school. I've been out of school a while, and though I've been coding some in my spare time, I'm still fairly rusty on a lot of areas. Houston has HCC which not only offers a lot of classes that would be applicable to me (Physics, Linear Algebra, etc.), they also have an AAS in Game Development, and they work with area studios for internships and job placement during school and after completion of the course. It's 2 years however, and it would mean I would need to take out more student loans, though because it's a community college it wouldn't be that much and I'd be able to defer my student loan payment until after the completion of the course.
I could also go back to school and try to finish a traditional BS in CS degree. UH has a decent CS program, and because of my classes I took at UTSA, the UH advisor said it would only take another 90 hours to graduate. However, I would be literally buying a piece of paper this time, since the majority of the knowledge they'd provide I already have from my time at Full Sail. It's also very pricey, especially since Texas deregulated tuition (I love Texas, but a big "Fuck you!" to them over that).
Finally, I could try to go for my Master's degree in CS. This seems to have the most risk, since it would be a huge money sink, it wouldn't have an immediate pay-off since I'd have to wait for Fall 2011 semester to start, and I may or may not even be accepted into a program because my BS degree is only semi-related. It is, however, the only option that seems like an academic step forward, and a Master's degree would look a lot better than just a 4 year old BS.
2.) Keep working at the hotel at nights, and completely invest myself in my iPhone and Android dev company. I'd love to do this except it provides absolutely no income to me and it may not ever. It would give me experience to put on a resume, but even if I was able to release a commercial product, how much would that compensate for the fact that it's my only job in 4 years, and it's one that I had to create?
3.) Fuck it all and start somewhere completely different doing a completely different thing. I could see myself building sailboats for the rest of my life in Hawaii, or maybe becoming a woodworker/carpenter in the mountains somewhere. The pros and cons are apparent, so I won't list them.
4.) Any other options my (now tired) brain hasn't thought of?
As a great side effect, having no money, no career at 26, and no free time because of night work means my social life is great!
TLDR:
I graduated 4 years ago and I haven't gotten a job. I made a lot of mistakes I'm aware of now, and I'm looking for advice regarding my options from here. Also, I love the semi-colon.
Sorry for the length, I just started writing and it all came out.
The Story:
I'm 26, I have a Bachelor's Degree in Game Design and Development from Full Sail University that I received in June 2006, and I have, as of yet, found a full-time career. I had always wanted to make games. I originally attended the University of Texas San Antonio for 2 years as a CS major, but after talking with the department head and some advisers, they had doubts whether their CS program would help me at all. I looked everywhere to find a school, and I had found DigiPen and Full Sail, and due to family issues, I resolved to go to Full Sail since Florida was a lot closer than Seattle. The 2 years I spent at Full Sail were great; it's a great school that teaches a lot across a variety of subjects useful for game dev, and expects nothing but 100% from its students with its 16+ hour days 6 days a week. The summer following my graduation, I moved back home to begin my job search, but again due to family issues, I could only look in my home state of Texas, which at the time I didn't think was too bad, considering Texas has a high concentration of game programming jobs. I also had previously agreed with my dad that I would help him get his construction business off the ground if he cosigned my student loans (BTW, my student loans total over $100,000, because I'm a moron), so the first 9-12 months I spent building offices with my dad and doing some clerical and accounting stuff for him. The result: I looked for a job only in Texas, and not as extensively as I probably should have.
After my dad got his business up and I could fully divest myself from it, I went into overdrive. I applied everywhere I could, and while I had about 14 phone and face-to-face interviews over the span of 8 months with a lot of different companies across the US, I was never offered a job. However, when I had seemed to almost give up hope, a fellow classmate who worked at Midway Austin set up an interview for me, and eventually I was hired on. The entire process took about 6 weeks, and when I started, I trained for about 3 weeks; then the studio shut down. I spent more time packing up the offices and submitting documents to the Midway central servers than I did working on anything.
After that, I realized I had to get out of my home town and move somewhere and get any type of job to try to break the slump. My sister was in her 2nd year of residency in Houston and offered to let me live with here while I got myself situated. I took on a job at a popular hotel to help with my share of the bills, save up some money, and begin paying back my student loan. I was still actively looking for a job, and I decided to look outside game programming and look for all coding jobs. I soon realized that my absence from any professional work was a huge red flag for a lot of places I interviewed with, and I had/have no idea how to address or resolve this issue. The more time that passes, the more the problem is compounded and I really can't see an immediate way out of it. Once my sister finished her residency and her last year of being a poor doctor, she became a rich doctor and moved into a nice high-rise condo. I didn't want to inconvenience her anymore, so I moved out on my own with the money I had saved up.
That puts me where I am now: losing money at a crappy job with no discernible break in site.
There are a lot of things I really regret doing, and I can only blame them on myself, my naivete, and my zeal for gaming. I've tried to shift some blame onto others. I thought maybe Full Sail wasn't a wise choice, but all of my classmates have been able to find jobs at studios like Blizzard, Microsoft, Raven, and Vicarious Visions (the one quality I can fault Full Sail for is their career development advisor, who has been extremely unreachable and flaky, but even then, my friends got their jobs on their own). It's my own damn fault, I know now. If I could change anything, I could pick from any number of mistakes.
Current:
The impetus for this request is I just hit my 2nd anniversary at this damn hotel, which means I hit my 4th anniversary of graduating. 4 years of failure. Hooray! I make $11.75 an hour at a job which has no relevance to what I want to do, and it's a job I truly despise in all aspects. I'm not depressed . . . well, I probably am, but I'm not despairing, I'm just lost. I still have the drive and determination to eventually achieve my goals, it's just at this point I have absolutely no clue on what to do next. I have my rejection letters and emails printed out on my wall to remind me of what I need to overcome. I've started a small iPhone and Android business with a couple of buddies. I figure this can get my mind active again, as well as generate professional experience I can use on my resume for future job prospects, and it has the added bonus of maybe providing some income, as well.
However, now with the added expense of rent on top of my exorbitant student loan payments, I started losing money. I don't want to ask anyone for money, as I figure I'm old enough that my mistakes and circumstances shouldn't be inconveniencing others.
Options:
I've spent a lot of time thinking about my options, and while I know I need to do something, I can't decide on exactly what I should do.
1.) Keep working at the hotel at nights, and go back to school. I've been out of school a while, and though I've been coding some in my spare time, I'm still fairly rusty on a lot of areas. Houston has HCC which not only offers a lot of classes that would be applicable to me (Physics, Linear Algebra, etc.), they also have an AAS in Game Development, and they work with area studios for internships and job placement during school and after completion of the course. It's 2 years however, and it would mean I would need to take out more student loans, though because it's a community college it wouldn't be that much and I'd be able to defer my student loan payment until after the completion of the course.
I could also go back to school and try to finish a traditional BS in CS degree. UH has a decent CS program, and because of my classes I took at UTSA, the UH advisor said it would only take another 90 hours to graduate. However, I would be literally buying a piece of paper this time, since the majority of the knowledge they'd provide I already have from my time at Full Sail. It's also very pricey, especially since Texas deregulated tuition (I love Texas, but a big "Fuck you!" to them over that).
Finally, I could try to go for my Master's degree in CS. This seems to have the most risk, since it would be a huge money sink, it wouldn't have an immediate pay-off since I'd have to wait for Fall 2011 semester to start, and I may or may not even be accepted into a program because my BS degree is only semi-related. It is, however, the only option that seems like an academic step forward, and a Master's degree would look a lot better than just a 4 year old BS.
2.) Keep working at the hotel at nights, and completely invest myself in my iPhone and Android dev company. I'd love to do this except it provides absolutely no income to me and it may not ever. It would give me experience to put on a resume, but even if I was able to release a commercial product, how much would that compensate for the fact that it's my only job in 4 years, and it's one that I had to create?
3.) Fuck it all and start somewhere completely different doing a completely different thing. I could see myself building sailboats for the rest of my life in Hawaii, or maybe becoming a woodworker/carpenter in the mountains somewhere. The pros and cons are apparent, so I won't list them.
4.) Any other options my (now tired) brain hasn't thought of?
As a great side effect, having no money, no career at 26, and no free time because of night work means my social life is great!
TLDR:
I graduated 4 years ago and I haven't gotten a job. I made a lot of mistakes I'm aware of now, and I'm looking for advice regarding my options from here. Also, I love the semi-colon.
Sorry for the length, I just started writing and it all came out.
Schmoo on
0
Posts
"Game Design" degrees always have bugged me. Getting a degree in a skill most likely earned on-the-job seems almost fraudulent. I'd finish the CS degree, code extensively and make a nice portfolio for yourself. The ability to code in some of the bigger programming languages is a much, much more marketable skill than a thorough understanding of power ups and level design, and can net you a job outside of the game industry that could still be a viable, marketable skill to the game industry if/when you find an opening.
I don't even know why I numbered that, lol.
But seriously, finishing a wide-spectrum degree like comp sci will benefit you greatly. The military thing may not be your thing, but it is a viable option.
I wouldn't advise #2. There is simply too much competition around a relatively simplistic business model to make much money that way. If you were part of a large conglomerate, it might work... but indie development of freeware apps is a hobby, not a job.
I still have a lot of reservations about taking out even more loans to pay for school, but at this point, I don't see another way. I'll have to work full time and severely limit my spending, but it's already minimal at this point. Anyone have advice on finances, either in the way of which company/lender to go with for the loan, any information on specific scholarships/grants I would be eligible for, or what type of job works best with students, etc.?
Looking for a Hardcore Fantasy Extraction Shooter? - Dark and Darker
A friend of mine dropped out of webdesign college, and instead focussed his effort on mods, level designs etc.
He started out texturing rocks, and now, 3 years and 3 jobs later, he's setteling in in the blizzard headquarters, working on an MMORPG (he had to sign an NDA though...).
so, apart from the recommendations, i'd just say: go out there and get noticed. He never even applied for his next jobs, always getting invited.
The first thing is to figure out whether game/software development is still what you want to do. It sounds like it is, but still, you want to make sure you're not putting time into something you don't like just because you feel like you should.
If you want to go back to school, you should have a clear idea of why and what the degree will enable you to do. Will a traditional BS in CS make you more marketable as an employee vs. the full sail degree? Ditto for the master's. If you think the answer is yes or you want to develop a new skill set, it might be worth doing.
I think the better option is to continue with the iphone/droid company, or with any other probono project that is similar or involved with what you want to be doing (game design?) I don't know anything about CS specifically really, but if you do something neat generally companies don't care that much if it was on a volunteer or hobby or self-employed basis.
that's why we call it the struggle, you're supposed to sweat
You shouldn't go back to school with this much debt until you have a job that can actually support you. If you think you are burning through cash now, wait until you're in school. If I were you I would try to find any job that pays more than your current one, but focus on the software industry. Hopefully you can spin your game design skills into something that can get you an entry level job as either a programmer or a software tester. Don't be afraid to move to where a good job is.
For the love of fuck, don't go back to school if you are already 100k in the hole.
There is nothing worthless about a degree from Full Sail. Most of the guys I graduated with have well paying jobs in the industry. Just like any other degree, you don't get jobs given to you when you graduate, you have to prove yourself.
OP - Have you tried applying at any simulation companies. There are alot of them and the turn over rate is much lower than a job in the game industry.
Shogun Streams Vidya
Make programs for anything. Make a program to track your budget and project future financial status. What languages do you know? Do you have experience with databases? Do you go to user groups or community meetings for programmers in your area?
To get a coding job, you need to focus on the smaller outfits. Blizzard? IBM? Forget it! They are overloaded with applications.
Take a look at that crummy outfit in the local business park that employs 7 people and makes .NET software for sailboats. Or be willing to move anywhere in the country to take any old game coding job - some games companies are in out of the way places and find it hard to get staff who want to live in Nowheresville and make Spongebob games for the under fives. You need experience urgently and need to be prepared to take less prestigious jobs to earn it in this economy.
I know I should try to get a better job before I think about going back to school, but it seems like a Catch-22; I can't pay down my student loan without a better job, and it seems like I can't get a better job without first adding to my student loan. The only thing I seem to be able to do is work more hours and more $11.75 jobs so I can slowly save up money, but by the time I make even a small dent in my enormous debt, I'd be 30, 35, or even 40. I need a career, something that pays 40k would make me a happy camper, and considering that the average starting salary of an entry-level programmer is ~50k an and the average starting salary for an entry-level game programmer is 60k, I think I'm not being overly ambitious.
Hearing all the advice, I think I need to do a little bit of everything. I'll stay with trying to make commercial apps for the iPhone and Android platforms, but I'll keep the two jobs I have, and I won't be dependent on it for income. If anything, it'll help me create software to strengthen my personal portfolio and give me professional coding and managerial experience I can put on my resume. I'll also start attending HCC in the fall semester with the eventual goal of transferring to UT. I may go full-time or part-time depending on what I discuss with the advisor and which classes I'll need to take to transfer over. This will at least put me on a long-term course for finishing my CS degree if nothing else comes along, and at the same time I can put out my resume and still apply for jobs (and it may take care of the "so what've you been doing lately," question). Also, HCC (really any community college) is extremely inexpensive as compared to the major universities, so while I may have to take out some loans to help me, it won't be nearly as much starting out. I'm also moving into a much cheaper place that's closer to my jobs in the next month, so that'll help with expenses and give me a bit more time before and after work.
If your loaner doesn't let you do that, look at the loan consolidation thing. There are places that will let you consolidate, even if you only have 1 loan, that will lock in your interest rate and give you other pay back options.
THIS.
A portfolio is absolutely necessary in the game development industry.
For content you should concentrate on game mods, texturing and simple games made yourself. You should also have a large project that's either complete or in progress (with progress made regularily) to show that you can handle such tasks.