College and schooling

Xslice55555

So I know we've all kinda grown into a small little community, The Hive, and I'm glad to be a part of it. I was always curious if anyone has gone to college and if so, what'd you wanna study and did you ever change majors. I myself am currently at college and I'm studying architecture. I'm currently a Junior and I'm going for my Master's degree. Its pretty cool, pretty hard though. But I guess it has to be. I get to make some pretty cool models and I get to design some pretty cool things. I've changed my major a few times before actually going into college. I changed from game design to graphic design, teaching, game testing, and a couple others. Mainly I changed so much cause I was never happy with something or I knew that it would be tough to get a job. I wanted to do graphic/game design because of my love of video games, but I knew getting a job is hard, also I'm terrible at designing graphic (funny how I went to architecture then haha). So yeah, that's my story of college and what I'm doing, hopefully you guys are interested in my story of college and what I'm doing. If you guys ever wanna see some of work, I'm happy to post anything. :)

MattDonatelli

I think that feeling a bit lost and confused about your major is pretty common for our generation. I first went to Columbia College Chicago for film school straight out of high school. I thought I wanted to be a director of films! Well, after my first semester the college pulled the majority of my financial aid, so I had to drop out and find work. 

I ended up getting a job doing Level Design for a videogame studio in Houston, TX where my brother worked (inside connections help a lot in this industry). I had done quite a bit of level design in high school on various game mod teams, and I put together a portfolio and got the job. I worked there for a year before I decided I wanted to finish college. 

So I went to an entirely different college, for an entirely different major (Political Science), and finished my Bachelors in that field. After I graduated I struggled to find work for almost a year. I realized I didn't want to work in politics, or go to law school, and that I'd be much happier in my day-to-day life if I were doing something creative in the games industry. 

Again, I spent my ~11 months of unemployment / underemployment working on my level design portfolio and applying to dozens of games companies. Eventually I ended up doing some contract-basis game design for Graphite Lab, a local company in St. Louis (where my brother worked, again, hooray nepotism!), and via this contract work I eventually earned a full time position!

So yeah, that's my schooling story, and how I ended up in the videogame industry! I can totally empathize about not knowing exactly what you want to do with your life, but college teaches you more than just a skill to work at a job. It teaches you a lot about determination, meeting deadlines, socializing, networking, writing standards, etc... that all transfer into MANY disciplines in the work world and your life in general. 

Based on your love for architecture and game design though, I'd say you should see if you enjoy level design! Mario Maker is an amazing 2D tool that will teach you so much about level design through trial and error and experimentation, and while 3D level design is a lot more difficult, upcoming games like Doom 4 promise some amazingly user friendly level design tools! You should check it out!

Xslice55555

I've thought about level design because of the idea of being able to make structures and terrain in video games. I don't have a WiiU otherwise I'd probably play Mario Maker. Using DOOM's map creator will be nice to use. It looks very nice to use. I know I've always wanted to now connect video games to architecture.

Jirrian

Hey there. c: I went to college as well. Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design with a focus in Illustration.

My boyfriend did his undergrad in Architecture - he went to University of Illinois and did a lot of cool things. (We still have a few models at the house) and eventually he went on to a Master of Fine Arts at Washington University, here in St. Louis. 

I always had a pretty solid idea that I wanted to be an 'Artist' - I graduated high school and did some community college for a year or two before I transferred to MIAD. It was there that I found a more specific focus and developed my method and (I use this loosely) 'style'. College was great for me - I did horribly in school all the way through high school and once I got to college it was totally my jam. Dean's list, all that good stuff .

I think sometimes you just gotta find the environment that works for you :'D And in some cases that means switching around majors and finding what's right. I wouldn't worry at all about still figuring things out - trust me - no one knows what they're doing :'D All of us are winging it each day. Even after graduation. Even 10, 20, 30 years down the road. Especially creatives. c:

Xslice55555

I'm just excited to be out of college and into the real world doing work. I'll miss college and I won't at the same time. I've been enjoying any experienced I've been given. I know I'll figure it out eventually. haha

Burgy

I did aspire to be an architect at one point, when I first figured out how to fiddle around in Blender.
But recently I've been learning how to program and taking a few computer science courses in school along with graphic design courses.
So I'm thinking of going for computer science at Fanshawe College or Waterloo University.
Haven't really decided yet but I will have to by January ;-;