Computer Games and Traditional CS Courses 173
drroman22 writes "Schools are working to put real-world relevance into computer science education by integrating video game development into traditional CS courses. Quoting: 'Many CS educators recognized and took advantage of younger generations' familiarity and interests for computer video games and integrate related contents into their introductory programming courses. Because these are the first courses students encounter, they build excitement and enthusiasm for our discipline. ... Much of this work reported resounding successes with drastically increased enrollments and student successes. Based on these results, it is well recognized that integrating computer gaming into CS1 and CS2 (CS1/2) courses, the first programming courses students encounter, is a promising strategy for recruiting and retaining potential students."
While a focus on games may help stir interest, it seems as though game development studios are as yet unimpressed by most game-related college courses. To those who have taken such courses or considered hiring those who have: what has your experience been?
I program games. (Score:5, Informative)
I program games. I'm coding right now in fact.
In less than 6 hours, I will be going to the office to program insurance software.
If you want to program games, do it for fun.
If you want to eat, bone up on your Insert/Update/Select/Deletes.
Obligatory comic link (Score:3, Informative)
Re:One step at a time (Score:2, Informative)
Some schools even go as far as doing nothing but teaching a curriculum around making video games. https://www.digipen.edu/ [digipen.edu]
It shares a campus with nintendo, so it may be a bit biased there, but their students tend to get nominated for IGF awards each year.