worthwhile winter break projects?

happyshark

Last year around this time I taught myself how to use photoshop - once I learned it my class presentations including power point presentation improved a whole hell of a lot. I feel bad for anyone who doesn't know the program now. I will have 3 weeks off uni soon....Is there anything I really should learn or try to learn over break? I know how to cook, get a lot of exercise, but don't know anything about programming. I got the UT3 engine with the new UT...would it be worth the effort to learn the editor or are there better things I could be doing that could help in other areas of life including school?

urahonky

I don't think there's very many guides out there for the UT3 engine. That said, if you went with a Half-Life Source engine I'm sure you could find a TON of guides out there for it. If you're gonna teach yourself how to use an editor I'd recommend that first, and if you enjoy it then you could probably fool around with the Unreal Editor in the future.

Scrublet

It depends on what you want to do. If you want to major in Computer Science and go into software engineering and the like, getting yourself familiar with C/C++ and Java are good ideas right now. However, if you're interested in game development, while what I just mentioned is necessary nothing looks better on your resume than experience designing levels, mods, etc. Your photoshop experience will also come in handy there as well.

amateurhour

You should play around with hardware during your break, and get better at making things by hand. Make some custom USB cables, or wire things to run on batteries instead of a wall plug. Build a custom mp3 server using a mini-itx motherboard. (they're really, really small. You can make a computer inside of a nintendo case). Build a home theatre projector for cheap.

If y ou're dead set on the programming I agree with scrublet. C/C++, Java, and also Python are good for learning. Personally I'm a fan of the hardware side of things though.

DasUberEdward

Isn't an mp3 server just like a harddrive? I'm kind of interested in what you mean amateur.

As for me I think i'm going to try to relearn a lot of the Japanese I knew. The op may want to look into a secondary language or honing one that has been previously learned.

Just having a word of the day through out all of break could cause some nice personal improvement at little expense.

amateurhour

well, I guess today it's not really all that practical since we have Ipod stereo's and everything, but I built some mini itx boxes into some pretty cool custom cases that had enough juice to run some old quake 3 arena engine-era games, serve music, and tivo, and it was a cool little project without hitting the wallet too bad.