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[Urist McScoopbeard]

Ya, after I thought it about, I realized I really didn't have any frame of reference. That maybe it was just stressful in comparison to doing literally nothing. So yes, it's actually a pretty sweet gig and I'm probably still on the right path.

EDIT: Also thank you guys, it's a huge help to be able to talk to someone and get some perspective on developing as a professional!

[nenjin]

Stick it out, and realise that you'll never find something that is both good and gives you time to work slowly/recharge/think things out.

Truth. There is always stress, because stress is things needing to be done now. Going in to business and being your own boss? Stressful as hell. Being a creative type who has to create or die? Stressful as hell. Being rich and trying to get richer? Still can be stressful as hell. Being a stay at home parent with kids? Stressful!

As a bit of a silver lining, you do realise after a while what is and isn't important - everything seems important to start with, but then you realise certain tasks aren't as crucial as you thought and you can suggest a few ways to your higher ups that will make things more efficient/easier.

I still struggle with this today, and I'll give you an example that happened just today:

Be me, returning home after 4 days on the road training some salty-as-fuck customer who is trying to drag his business out of 2 million dollars of debt someone else ran up. At the airport security gate, due to TSA being uncoordinated dumbasses, I essentially did not have to unload or take off any of my stuff to get through security, on TSA's orders. "Take nothing out of your bags and put everything in your pockets in your bags. Leave your coats shoes and belts on. It's simple!" the TSA man said.

But they run my laptop bag twice, for some reason. 4 hours later when I'm sitting on the second and last plane to get home, I look in my laptop bag and realize....my fucking laptop isn't there.

It's loaded with all kinds of shit I don't need out in the wild. VPNs. Password vaults. Database access out the whazoo. Our goddamn SVN repository of files. I'm not only fucking LIVID at TSA for jerking me around and causing my laptop to go missing (no one ever told me they were pulling out my laptop to run it and I never saw it come out of security by itself), I'm terrified I might be responsible for a security breach if that gets in to the wrong hands. I'm also embarrassed because if I'm honest, I should have checked even if I didn't have a real reason to. I'm still honestly pissed off about it right now.

I text my boss, my sys admin. Stop by work to drop off my stuff and to talk to them both and the whole time I'm talking....my boss just has that smile on his face that is kind of patronizing. Like, he's just kind of waiting for me to tell my story and be gone. No real opinions. It's not that he's being a dick, I'm just freaked out about something that doesn't concern him all that much. He's used to this from me, how amped up I can get.

So yeah. Learning what's worth stressing out about is a life skill and many people never ever come close to figuring it out in their professional life. If I'm honest with myself, 99% of my stress I think comes from a fear that I'm not doing a good enough job, either in my boss' eyes or my own. And that I'm making big fuckups when I make dumb, thoughtless mistakes. Even after 6 years of employment, I ride myself that hard.

You will always be your harshest critic and the less confidence you have, the harsher you will be on yourself. And the real trap you fall in to is when you tell yourself there's stuff you CAN'T do. I've watched one guy I worked with get so stressed out at a work thing we were doing he threw up in a trashcan and was like "I can't do this." When the truth was, for him, that he couldn't handle the bottom part of the learning curve where things are their most brutal. Hell the poor bastard I was training this week on the software to save this business had a perpetual look of "I don't know if I can do this...." on his face.

It's funny, after embarking on the whole fitness thing and recently watching two brand new players to Dark Souls git gud, it's kind of put a lot of things in perspective lately.

But still, seriously, TSA? Go to hell.

[Urist McScoopbeard]

Again, thank you all for your wonderful advice, this is certainly turning out to be a formative period for me.

Alright. Here's the deets. Semester and internship going great. That said, I'm still not sure I want to continue down this career path. Not because it's more or less difficult than another career path, but working in television development is not stimulating in the way I thought it would be. I don't think I really want to be a producer and after a copious amount of exposure to professional screenwriters that particular path sounds pretty depressing (and I find I am less in love with the realities of writing professionally than I was in school.)

Serendipitously, one of the (alumni) speakers that came to talk to my program was a video game producer and had worked on LOTRO, World at War, Black Ops, and Ye Olde Mark Ecko's Getting Up and offered me a job as a game analyst. I thought about it a bit and realized that not only am I much more video game literate than film/television literate, but that game design was also what I was planning on switching into from engineering before I found out my school didn't have a great program and finding film.

So, and there's a while to go before I have to make this decision, on one hand I think it might be good to work a real job for a few years and continue getting some professional experience. On the other hand, I have the opportunity to go back to school now without having to take loans (for either a master's or a combined 3-yr under-grad + master's in game development with a heavy emphasis on programming.) I was thinking that because my parents are basically going to make me get my master's anyways, I might as well NOT do screenwriting (because I don't really need a Master's in screenwriting) and pick up some actual proficiency in programming to have a hard skill (while still doing something I love.)

So ya. I'm probably not going to get another television development job or anything like working at an agency, et al. and I'm curious as to what you guys think I should do.

[Doomblade187]

I mean... If you just got offered a legit job in a field you are interested in with good experience building and maybe even advancement opportunity, you should consider taking it. In my opinion.

[Urist McScoopbeard]

I mean... If you just got offered a legit job in a field you are interested in with good experience building and maybe even advancement opportunity, you should consider taking it. In my opinion.

I am very much considering taking it! I'm rather excited about the opportunity actually. I just worry about my prospects down the line, as I'll probably want to make the switch from analyst to developer at some point and that's going to be rather hard without a solid, working knowledge of programming.

EDIT: To temper this, there is still a lot to discuss with him. So I only have a vague idea of what is really being offered to me, but I kind of doubt it covers some sort of professional education in the skills required to be a game developer. Unless that's a thing that happens? I don't know.

[Doomblade187]

You should discuss that with the person offering the job. Now, I am just another intern and I have good supervisors. But I would ask him about if there are any opportunities for professional development to learn development skills.

Keep in mind: I am bad at social situations.

[nenjin]

FWIW, talking to professionals for the degree I was trying to earn (Journalism) definitely put me off entering the industry. But if they'd offered me a job, I would have taken it. Get paid first. "Personal fulfillment" can come later when you can afford to seek it.

[Retropunch]

First off, look very carefully at the job offer and don't do anything until you a signed offer in front of you. Not to burst any bubbles or anything, but people don't tend to go around as speakers and offer jobs out to people they've just met (especially people without tons of experience). This could well be a case of 'I've got a fantastic job for you as a game analyst...I mean, you will get paid eventually but we're a new studio/this is what indie life is like/you can gain some great exposure!' - basically, another unpaid internship under any other name. Check the studio is legit, and also check that you aren't just getting a junior QA job which is the equivalent to working in a call centre for a big business - you can break out of it, but it's like a 1/1000 chance, and even less so if you don't have the qualifications to back it up.

If you want to go into game design/etc though then that's great!! Definitely go down the masters route - I didn't find my undergrad too helpful, but my Masters has set me up for life. I got a ton of interviews off the back of it. It's not as heavy as a PhD, but I'm now always a step ahead of the curve in terms of qualifications. If you don't get those qualifications, you'll always be behind everyone else who does - regardless of whatever people say about 'it's experience that matters etc. etc.' -  you can get experience way more easily than a degree.

Re: Programming - it will always be a heavily in demand skill, but remember that it's unlikely you'll get a proper programming job without doing some sort of extra courses - you'll be going up against compsci people and game programming still seems a bit fluffy.
To put it into perspective, I recently interviewed a number of candidates for a pretty basic programming and analytics job and about 5 had done a 'game programming' degree (and one with a PhD!) and they were all, absolutely, categorically, terrible. Compared to even the mediocre compsci guys they were truly pathetic, because they had no knowledge of 'basic' programming - just how to use unity etc. I'm sure many people have done a game programming course to rival hard maths at Oxbridge, but I've yet to see it. However it's easily remedied (to the point of being an 'ok programmer') as if your course doesn't do a good enough job you can think about doing an extra accredited course in Python/C or whatever.

TLDR: Careful about the job, definitely get proper qualifications if you don't NEED the money right now.

[Urist McScoopbeard]

I will certainly do my homework on this job offer. I will mention that he's not on the speaking circuit or anything, he just agreed to come speak to my (brand spanking new) program because he was an alum. That said, you bring up some good points and I will tread carefully.

I can afford to go back to school for several years right now, but I would like to avoid another four year undergrad program because well... that's a shit load of time and I still wouldn't have my masters. I definitely do NOT have the resources for another 6-7 years of schooling. I can however afford two or three.

Do you have any recommendations about how to proceed? Game development is the dream, but I do not want to squelch of my programming aptitude to dive right designing games. The tough part is that without a strong prior background in programming (I've gotten started several times, but pretty much only ever slightly passed the absolute basics) I'm not exactly sure where to begin. Community college maybe?

I'm considering Full Sail for the opportunity to do an undergrad + grad in three years, but also like you mentioned, I really don't want to be stranded with knowledge solely of an engine like Unity, but no practical skills in wider applications of programming.

[nenjin]

There's nothing stopping you from attacking C++ or C# tutorials right now to get ahead of the game while you figure out your "paper strategy." That's how you don't get trapped in Unity. Or start smaller and simpler, like grabbing a Python text adventure tutorial and getting into the flow of programming and thinking like a programmer, before you attempt to understand a lower level language.

[Urist McScoopbeard]

There's nothing stopping you from attacking C++ or C# tutorials right now to get ahead of the game while you figure out your "paper strategy." That's how you don't get trapped in Unity. Or start smaller and simpler, like grabbing a Python text adventure tutorial and getting into the flow of programming and thinking like a programmer, before you attempt to understand a lower level language.

Probably a good idea which I'll steal.

Anyone have any experience with Full Sail btw?

[Doomblade187]

As they are for profit, I would be very careful. Also a plug-several legit universities offer online compsci masters programs, and MIT opencourseware is always nice.

If you want, I can notify you of a few online masters degrees.

[Urist McScoopbeard]

Yes the whole for-profit business does concern me and I've been researching them for the past several weeks, but I was just curious if any Bay12ers had any actual experience with them.

I don't know how I feel about online degrees, but if you have any recommendations I am positively open to suggestion on how to proceed.

[Retropunch]

Yes the whole for-profit business does concern me and I've been researching them for the past several weeks, but I was just curious if any Bay12ers had any actual experience with them.

I don't know how I feel about online degrees, but if you have any recommendations I am positively open to suggestion on how to proceed.

DO NOT do an online degree, unless it's in something really specific that works as a sort of bolt-on (I have a friend who is a physicist, and they did an online degree in a specific branch of forensics as it helped fill out what he was trying to do). Pretty much all employers see them as worth a lot less than a 'proper' degree/worthless, and if I saw someone with a three year masters and undergrad I'd be highly, highly suspicious.

There's another issue that goes above this in that many are sketchy/running close to the edge - even well known/respected ones can very quickly go under through scandal/bankruptcy etc - your brick and mortar, old school universities are pretty much immune to this and even if they do go down, will have enough of a history around them that it'll be easy to know everything is legit. If your online uni goes down, will the degree mean anything? Imagine someone coming up to you in ten years when you're a hotshot manager and saying 'yeah I've got a degree, but the place it's from is completely closed down and there's nothing really online about them other than something on the 15th page of google but I swear it's all legit' - hows that going to look?

Remember, a degree is only as good as it looks to the person hiring. It doesn't matter if you had the most awesome, engaging courses, if the person at the other end thinks it's worthless. You don't need some ivy league super-maths degree, just a 'normal' degree from a 'normal' uni.

However, there are various options - many unis will allow you to do a 'combination course' where you do a lot of work from home and maybe go in once/twice a week with an online component, some 'proper' unis do online degrees although be wary about them as often the courses are a shallow imitation of the proper course and they'll make it clear it is (because they want the money from proper attendees/it'd hurt the professors feelings if an online course was just as good)

In my opinion, your best bet would be to try and work something out with a uni, such as doing a compressed undergrad (as you already have some credits/experience) plus a part time masters - that might mean that you do it in four years in total but one and a half of those you could work as well, or three years full time or something like that. I know a few people who did that and it worked out pretty great!

[Urist McScoopbeard]

Ya, not thrilled about online degrees.

However, there are various options - many unis will allow you to do a 'combination course' where you do a lot of work from home and maybe go in once/twice a week with an online component, some 'proper' unis do online degrees although be wary about them as often the courses are a shallow imitation of the proper course and they'll make it clear it is (because they want the money from proper attendees/it'd hurt the professors feelings if an online course was just as good)

In my opinion, your best bet would be to try and work something out with a uni, such as doing a compressed undergrad (as you already have some credits/experience) plus a part time masters - that might mean that you do it in four years in total but one and a half of those you could work as well, or three years full time or something like that. I know a few people who did that and it worked out pretty great!

These are interesting ideas. I suppose if I can cut off most of the general education requirements, it would cut down pretty significantly on the time required to complete the degree.