I need advice

[amomentlikethis]

As a 17 year old I didn't have a clue what I wanted to do with my life, and right up until the end of school I hadn't especially given university a thought. When it struck me that I was only two or three months away from having to find a full-time job, I decided to look into courses I could do at uni - I didn't feel I was at all ready for a full-time job, let alone university for that matter, but university seemed like it would delay things a little.
With my pretty poor grades I managed to get onto a foundation course studying Computer Game Development. I liked the idea of creating my own games, so at the time it seemed like a pretty neat thing to do. The course was pretty shit, and I passed it with ease. In September last year I started on the full-time Computer Games Development course.

It's now February and I'm not enjoying the course at all. I'm finding it incredibly boring in fact, and rarely want to go to my classes as I know how dull they are.
I really want to change course, but that would mean adding an extra £6,000 or so to my current student loan debt. I've already borrowed and spent £9,000 on the foundation and first year of the course, and if I continue I'll be around £24,000 in debt when the course finishes in 2 years time.

I really enjoy writing stories, and would love to become a full time writer one day. Because of this I'd want to change into some form of English-related course. However I really don't know what to do. Do I continue my current course and end up with a somewhat useless degree, and write things in my spare time? Do I drop out entirely and find a job? Or do I try to get into an English-related course to hopefully end up writing full time, yet end up £6,000 extra in debt?

This has been bugging me for over a month now, and I really don't know what to do.

[smartalco]

Do I continue my current course and end up with a somewhat useless degree

I can't comment on the rest, but from what I've heard, game development degrees in general are mostly useless in the first place, so my suggestion is to /not/ continue with what you are doing either way (if you do want to do game dev, I've been told that a general comp sci degree is much more useful)

[golf]

Do I continue my current course and end up with a somewhat useless degree

I can't comment on the rest, but from what I've heard, game development degrees in general are mostly useless in the first place, so my suggestion is to /not/ continue with what you are doing either way (if you do want to do game dev, I've been told that a general comp sci degree is much more useful)

Although I don't know a whole lot about the difference between game dev and comp sci degrees, it would seem to me that they have quite a bit in common. So I think that taking smartalco's description might be a good option for you. It would get you out of the straight game dev courses that you seem to dislike, and a comp sci degree gives you more options once you graduate.

[aids]

Contrary to popular belief, as long as you have a basic education in grammar and English, you don't really need to go to school to write stories for a living. You just need to be able to tell a story that people will want to read. But, have you considered being a journalist at all?

[scythe]

I don't want to be a dick about it, but if you're not into programming, you're going to hate game development. It's all programming, and pretty low-level at that, plus there's a labor surplus so you get shitty pay for long hours. It's definitely not as glamorous as it might sound. The people you may have heard about are really good at it and they've worked at it for a long time. If you really want to work in video games, the easiest way for a nontechie is going into graphical design, but good luck with that.

Game dev is more real-world than comp sci. Instead of Python and Java you study C++ and Flash (maybe Lua or UnrealScript). If you take it at a bullshit university (like, say, ITT Tech), it will leave you flipping burgers.

[t̷s͢uk̕a͡t͜ư]

If I can be real for a moment:
You shouldn't be a computer game design major, nor should you be any kind of "pure" English or literature major. These are both awful ideas.
Holding on to a degree that you're not interested in will make you hate your education and not feel your student loans are deserved. If you do manage to force your way through graduation, your best source of income is going to be in the same field as your degree, and it's a very bad idea to put yourself in a situation where you can only make ends meet if you suffer through a job you hate for the rest of your life.
On the other hand, the thought that you can make a living as an author is also unrealistic. 99% of authors never achieve any meaningful amount of recognition or money from their work.
Your college education should be something that maximizes your salary in a field of your interest. Your life will suck if you have a job you hate or if you don't have any effective way of paying off your debts. I think the journalism suggestion is a good one, but primarily because I can't really think of many other writing-related professions that pay decently. Are you interested in teaching, maybe?

If you don't have any other interests besides writing... I don't know, talk to your advisors at your school. That is, after all, their job.

[Luminaflare]

Just to nit-pick here Suki but design and development are different things, judging from AMLT's first (and currently only) post he's got in to the development side of things which most courses don't see as all around everything (Character, story, art, programming, game play mechanics) they just see it as the programming/game play mechanics side (If that) which isn't really a good idea for someone more interested in the story/design side. But everyone in this thread has a point, game design/development/programming courses are next to useless for actually getting a job, the only use they have is to teach you the how and about the industry (Although I do know quite a few courses don't even do that, A friend had to get a job as an office monkey due to not being taught anything about how games are actually made just how to write a story). I am personally going to university for game programming to learn the how, then after I might do the design as well if I don't get a job, entirely to teach me how to make games, not get a job. Any ways I appear to be rambling a bit and probably went a bit off subject/point.

Either way AMLT find something you enjoy or don't mind doing that works as a plausible job and do it, being an author can lead to a very nice bit of a job but it's like Suki said, only a small amount actually achieve anything meaningful, if you don't like programming games don't do it. Do you have a course/career advisor at uni? If so presuming their not an idiot (A long shot I know) go talk to them about it.

[amomentlikethis]

Do you have a course/career advisor at uni?

I'm going to try talk to her tomorrow, I tried today but apparently she's "very busy this week".
I still don't feel ready for a full-time job, which I guess sounds a bit pathetic at 19. However all the English-related courses my university has to offer have entry requirements which I probably can't meet, so that may be the best option.

[Awesome67]

As a 13-14 year old middle school student, I will clearly state that I don't exactly understand what you're going through. However, ever since the sixth grade it has been my lifelong dream to be a writer or poet, considering that I have plenty of imaginative ideas and love to express them openly. It's a very passionate and interesting career, I suppose, and it takes a lot of intense thinking and preparation. Many writers such as Stephen King (I've been reading a lot of his books lately) have their own unique and articulate style that readers expect in each book. Hell, all writers have their own style, but you just have to decide what yours is. Just thought I'd drop you some advice on such a hard debate. I'm pretty into this stuff.

[otters~1]

Journalism is definitely a good idea, if you have people skills. However, it's not really analogous to "regular" writing; the two don't have much to do with each other, so being interested in one doesn't guarantee being interested in (or good at) the other.

So far everyone's ignoring the extra 6000 pounds you would lose by switching courses. It's true that sticking yourself with an un-fun degree is a bad idea, but leaving college with a lot of debt may be worse.

[Awesome67]

I agree with Flag. There is a lot of deficit that you could gain through that. Although I favor writing, there are many things to think about making this decision.

[SlappyMcGee]

Writing is an incredibly tough job to get, but for those suggesting journalism, the market for print and web journalism is well saturated. Unless there is something real special about your writing.

[LittleViking]

Your school has English professors, for sure. Ask one of them if you can make an appointment to look over your work. Tell the professor you're interested in creative writing and wanted to get some quick tips regarding your style. Pick a story you're proud of (a few pages long) and get as much criticism as possible in the time allowed.

Ask this professor about writing and poetry journals. Most universities (and other independent organizations) put out monthly or quarterly writing magazines. Your professor probably won't have a list of them, but there are books you can buy that are just directory listings of hundreds of writing magazines. They're made for writers to send their work out to. So ask the professor which listings they know of, buy one of them, and start sending your work out. You'll get rejected non-stop, but every time someone agrees to publish you, you get paid and you get your name out there. Such is the life of an amateur writer.

Also, when you research these writing magazines, just read a bunch of them. You can learn a lot from reading the writings of others. I don't know if you're an avid reader or not, but don't go into writing if you don't like reading. It's pointless.

[aids]

...don't go into writing if you don't like reading. It's pointless.

Along theses lines:

• Don't become a mechanic if you don't have your driver's license.
• Don't become a pilot if you're afraid of heights.
• Don't become a lawyer if you are a pacifist.

[Destiny]

Next year I will myself enrole on a Game Development course at the University of Bolton, and I have to admit, it doesnt sound as interesting and fun as i had hoped. But that said, it will replace 3 years of what would be working full-time (Which sounds like a real chore.) with 3 years that are often considered the best years of your life. If i'm totally honest, I don't even want to go into the game design industry, unless i'm making what i personally want to make. Hell, i don't want to be stuck programming some tennis game for the PS3 - I really don't care about tennis games. I'm only going to make games in my spare time, and release them for free or a small price, maybe a little like M+R. My main source of income is going to come from a combination of playing as part of a rock band, writing novels, and teaching guitar.

I know there isnt very much money in any of those areas really, unless you do them really well (Which i'm sure as hell going to give a shot.), but I've decided that I don't really need all that much money. So long as I can afford to live, I'll be having fun since I enjoy all those things. Which means, in turn, that I'll have a very happy life, and if I then move in with my girlfriend (Providing we don't break up in the next 3 years. I can't see it happening, but you never know what's coming.) we should easily have a combined income enough to live comfortably.

Going back to the game development thing - I don't picture myself publishing games often enough to make much money at all from them, they're just something on the side, really. And since i'm not good enough at playing the guitar to teach or play in a band yet, (well, i'm not too far off.) I just need to kill some time until I am good enough. So that's where university comes in. I'm just going to kill time, avoid having to get an office monkey job, and have a fun three years on the side. In the end, how important really are the classes?

So ask yourself this: How do you want to survive? By the sounds of it you want to write, although judging by that story you're writing, I'd say that you're not good enough. So you're in the same boat as me now, you see? You keep practicing your writing over the next however many years you're in university for, so that when you leave, you're good enough at it to make a living from it. Practice makes perfect, after all.

By the sounds of it, changing to an english subject will probably be a good move, in the sense that you'll learn to write better, but £6000 is a lot of money, and I can't see it paying off. Maybe try to find someone on the internet, hell, maybe even in this community, to teach you how to write creatively. That's free, and probably less of a chore than the course anyway. Anyways, after writing all this, i'm late to college, so imma cut this a little short. Hope I helped ^^

[t̷s͢uk̕a͡t͜ư]

As for loans in general, the advice I'm following at this point is from my boss, whom I trust to be generally awesome in most walks of life.
And that advice is, basically, don't be afraid to dive right into loans if they're paying for a degree that will earn you enormous quantities of money. The people who have the most problems paying off debts are (obviously) those people who weren't able to get high-paying jobs with their degrees, which to me personally seems like a waste of a degree. So my boss took out egregious amounts of loans, yes, but his job pays an unreasonably high amount, making his monthly payments practically trivial. I've seen him take up a number of very expensive hobbies with a casual dismissal of the cost attached. So that's more or less where I'm aiming, while (of course) limiting what I do actually borrow only to what I need... which in my case is more or less the cost of tuition entirely.

[ADMINISTRATOR]

It's good to aim for the stars, but just be realistic about it. It might take you a while to figure out exactly what you want to study or do. My suggestion is take your time and do your research. I have a few suggestions and warnings for you and maybe a few others that might be planning on furthering their education. First of all, let me point out, I live in the US:

1) Stay away from online courses.

2) Make sure you are getting REGIONAL accreditation not National. Regional accreditation is transferable and employers respect it. National accreditation has low standards. It is literally, IMPOSSIBLE to transfer those credits, and employers will automatically assume your education is not worth a pickle, and throw your resume away. Literally.

3) Unless you're rich, I suggest attending a community college/university (real schools). Don't attend any proprietary schools. For example, in America we have ITT Tech, DeVry University, and the University of Phoenix, etc. Beware of these types of fake educational establishments because they are huge corporate scams. They LOOOOVE to charge bloated amounts in student loans, and give you the least education they can. A good indicator is if you see them advertising on TV all the time. Then you know they are a for-profit establishment.

4) Ask as many questions as you can because they won't tell you important facts up front (like cost of tuition and the amount of credit hours you're getting). In fact, they will do the contrary. They will do their best to hide the facts, because at the end of the day they want to stick common folks with huge student loans, with as little of an education as possible, and at the same time keep shareholders happy. They will want to keep both your money and their education. So again, make sure you're asking questions. (Know the curriculum and amount of REGIONAL credits your getting and how much they are costing you). 2 year degrees (in America) should cost NO more than $10,000. Use this as an indicator for determining if the school is legit or a sham.

5) Walk through the campus and make sure you feel comfortable. After all, you will be frequenting the place for a while. Check out the computer lab, check out the library, and maybe a few classrooms. Ya know stuff like that.

6) Make sure the field you choose is stable. By stable I mean profitable and has a low turn-over rate. Ultimately, we all go to college not for education, but for a bad ass job! Actually, I take that back. We go for both, but more for the bad ass job :)

[Luminaflare]

Our education system works much differently than the US one (Well not that much but enough to make points 2 to 4 erroneous). We go through school and get GCSEs to show your basic skills (to be honest all that actually matters is english, maths and science), you then go to College (Which is free for the most part) for (most commonly) your A levels, you need a certain grade/amount of GCSEs to get on to the course, which is two years (First year is AS level, second is A), every college qualification has an arbitrary point value associated with it and you need a certain tally (Usually 250 to 350 from what I've seen) to get in to university (Which you -do- pay for, about £3k to £4k a year) which is generally 3 years of course and 1 year of work placement (Optional), as for the loans you get a student loan which you only pay back if you're earning over £15,000 a year and it takes it off what you get paid as tax so you don't have to worry about putting money to one side to pay it back. Essentially every educational establishment in the UK is government run, there are private schools/colleges/universities they are much fewer in number than the US, also up until uni or being 18 it's free apart from a few specific college courses.


Also AMLT I checked out the uni course you're on, It is, as far as I can tell, just the programming side and it sounds to me like you want the design side of it.

[t̷s͢uk̕a͡t͜ư]

3) Unless you're rich, I suggest attending a community college/university (real schools). Don't attend any proprietary schools. For example, in America we have ITT Tech, DeVry University, and the University of Phoenix, etc. Beware of these types of fake educational establishments because they are huge corporate scams. They LOOOOVE to charge bloated amounts in student loans, and give you the least education they can. A good indicator is if you see them advertising on TV all the time. Then you know they are a for-profit establishment.

I disagree with this in its entirety. I've attended three different undergraduate institutions in pursuit of a Bachelor's, and that's given me a certain amount of insight into the whole community vs private education question.
I went to a private high school that pumped out National Merit Scholars like clockwork, and some overwhelming percentage of graduates (95% or so, if memory serves) went on to a college or university immediately. A few of my friends went with exactly the same kind of rhetoric as you've given, above: education is education, and they didn't see a point in paying 20 times as much for a degree just so it could have a fancier name on it. They went off to community colleges for (2-year) Associate Degrees, some of them with plans to get a Bachelor's at a state university.
I went to Boston University immediately out of high school. I paid out the ass for the two years I spent there, and my experience was somewhat mixed. Some of the classes I took were very challenging, and the professors were brilliant and generally awesome. On the other hand, a good half of my classes were just awful, and taught me less than I would go on to learn in an equivalent course at a community college. The place pretty much reeked of exactly that corporate sham feeling you're talking about.
For personal reasons, I transferred to a community college in my home town with the intention of getting my life together and transferring out again. Unsurprisingly, the classes were all walks in the park. Courses covered much less of the subject than their private equivalents and in much less depth. Even so, the community college kids were dropping like flies all around me, many failing out before the class became remotely challenging. There was only a single exception to this abysmal educational standard, and that was the narrow selection of classes taught by a particular professor in the math department. Even so, the courses he taught had to move very slowly, and the homework and exams simplistic enough to allow a decent portion of the students to pass. I hit the ceiling of their highest-division courses almost immediately, and they compared pretty evenly with the most shameful of the entry-level courses at BU.
This January, I transferred to UC Santa Cruz, and I was overwhelmed for the first few weeks by the rigor and the high academic standard they hold to. I've got my bearings now, but I still have to put a constant effort into my schoolwork to stay afloat. The change in the quality of education is quite palpable -- I was learning nothing in community college compared to what I'm learning now, and I'm only taking prereqs for upper division courses! I really can't do it justice without boring you with extensive details, but suffice it to say that the best of community college taught me jack shit.
I've been reconnecting with my old peers from high school every now and again, usually between school years. Y'know how all the community college kids are doing? They're having trouble getting hired anywhere, live locally, and still prattle on about how education is overrated. And y'know how all the private school kids are doing? Fucking excellently. Companies seek them out to hire them, and they're settling into well-paying jobs that they excel in. I've only ever seen a suspiciously high correlation between general incompetence and a dismissal of private education.

My experience taught me that education costs more at private institutions because it's worth more. Go figure.

[smartalco]

^To add to that (especially the very end), I go to KU as a comp sci major. KU has one of the better engineering departments in the country. Twice a year they host an engineering career fair. Companies from all over the country send representatives to try to get the best of the students early. I've seen sophomores get offered (and take) ridiculously high-paying summer internships. These aren't no name 12 employ operations either. These are huge names like Garmin, Boeing, and Lockheed Martin. Boeing actually had the engineering department send out a job app to all the comp sci/comp eng students because they are opening a new office in Lawrence and need some kids to basically triple check code for consistency.

In short, the 'education-is-education' rhetoric is utter bullshit. Get a good degree or just skip college.

[Destiny]

Wow, higher education in the US sounds like a pain in the ass. I'm so glad i'm in britain right now O_O

[ADMINISTRATOR]

Suki, University of California and Boston University are both state universities. These schools are not publicly traded. Therefore, they are not for-profit schools. You should be getting a good education for you're investment. You made good decisions.

Unfortunately, not everyone will make wise decisions. Why? Because there are "educational establishments" enticing naive teenagers to enroll in their schools claiming to give a 2 year degree in less than 6 months. Thing is they will "teach" for 6 months, but will often charge more than a 2 year tuition rate. Cramming 2 years worth of material into 6 months is next to impossible, unless you're Albert Einstein. It's just not the same.

Those are the types of schools I'm talking about. They are the for-profit shamers. These organizations are pretty obvious, but not many people are aware to look out for them. They're also distinguishable because their entrance exams are their front doors. When I say they steal people's education, I mean they literally do steal it by slashing a whole 1.5 years of education and still charge a bloated amount for it. This is not the only way they do it, just the most obvious.

Now that I'm on this, what pisses me off even more is the fact the government gives them millions (possibly billions) in government grants, anyway that's a totally different topic.

[t̷s͢uk̕a͡t͜ư]

Boston University [is a] state universit[y].

Y'know, it's funny, the one thing you have in common with every other BU student is the high frequency at which you have to explain that Boston University is not Boston College. BU is quite private.