[gameprogrammer] Re: Grumble gripe... my class was canceled.

A pity that.  If I weren't a couple of hundred miles north of you on
IH35 I'd probably sign up for the course.  I'm not an absolute novice at
programming but I think there are aspect of it relating to gaming that I
won't grasp until I make a lot off starts and a lot of mistakes.  At the
very least, some perspective would help.

I work on staff for the community college system up here in Dallas and
even with seven campuses I can't find the kind of CS courses I want
without having to go up to UNT.  Always the easy route using VB and
eschewing the classes that get you into the real guts of programming
Windows, Mac OS and Linux/Unix.  I'd probably have to pay several
hundred dollars to take a course at SMU to get what I want/need.

A suggestion, perhaps.  I believe the University of North Texas has a
course of study in video game production.  You might try to get in touch
with someone up there and see how they promote it and how well they're
doing with it.  I can see how some people might consider video games as
a passing fad, limited career path or a childish endeavor.  One young
woman I met a couple of months ago use to program for XBox.  She got out
of the field because it was too demanding, with too many deadlines and
not enough time for a personal life.  Probably makes the case for indie
production.

A friend of mine who teaches EE went down before the beginning of a
semester a number of years back and handed out flyers promoting their
program at a local electronics flea market.  If there are any such
events in the Austin area you might consider doing some promotion
there.

Lilith

>>> On 9/1/2006 at 9:38 AM, in message
<1157121514.5125.29.camel@localhost>, Bob
Pendleton <bob@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> As many of you know I teach a class on game programming at Austin
> Community College. There are even a few of you out their who have
taken
> it. For the first time I can remember it was canceled because not
one
> student signed up for the class. I have had classes canceled because
> their weren't enough students, but I have never had zero students
sign
> up for a class. The next day I read a student game postmortem linked
off
> of slashdot that said that one of the problems they had was that
they
> couldn't get enough programmers to join the project. It seems there
were
> very few programmers in that school and the programmers were all
busy
> doing their own projects. 
> 
> I checked at ACC and I see that all the art, design, and production
> classes are full, or nearly full, and that the programming classes
are
> all empty, or nearly empty. 
> 
> I asked Bob McGoldrick (my boss at ACC) about this and he says that
yes,
> most of the students are in the design track. He has trouble getting
> students for the programming track and they don't stay around very
long,
> they take one or a few programming classes and then they leave the
> program.
> 
> Now it could be that my class sucks and the word of mouth about it
has
> made people refuse to sign up for it. OTOH, my evaluations by the
> students who take my classes mark me as one of the most highly rated
> teacher in the program. Way above the ACC average. 
> 
> So we have a pattern where there are lots of students learning game
> design and production and very few who can write the code, or even
the
> scripts, needed for a modern game engine. Sounds like this is
creating a
> great opportunity for game programmers. It also support the pattern
I
> have seen in the past; there are lots of programmers who can do art
and
> 3D modeling but very few artists who can do programming.
> 
> Oh well, I have two nights a week free that I wasn't expecting to
have
> free.
> 
> Any comments?
> 
>       Bob Pendleton
> 
> P.S.
> 
> Yeah, this is a person grumble about the state of the world. I
really
> love teaching my classes at ACC and it disappoints me when they get
> canceled. Anyone in the Austin area interested in a game development
> study group?


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