[game_edu] Here goes the first shoe . . .

[Robert Farr]

As a student on a degree program in the UK myself, I can say this, I've
noticed that the students that came onto the degree with me arrived
expecting to be taught how to do various things and during the first year
that's exactly what happened. And come the second year, when the learning is
supposed to be more student led there's been a definite period of denial and
adjustment that's had to happen for us before we've been able to move on
again. 
How many of us will make it through this second year I'm not quite sure but
one thing I'm certain of is that the people who make it into the third year
won't be the dossers (Lazy), though some of us might be terrible
procrastinators (Looks at self).
I find myself wondering if more could be done to instil a 'go out and learn'
mindset in students, maybe often-times that is what's missing. Other times I
can say there's a case of it being something that needs to be learnt but
which I'm not overly fond of the idea of doing as a job in industry, for
example I'm much more comfortable doing level/game design but in order to do
level design I need to pick up texturing (Back filling knowledge that wasn't
taught in the first year) which I'm uncomfortable with and thus, find it
hard to sit down and just learn it.

-----Original Message-----
From: game_edu-bounces at igda.org [mailto:game_edu-bounces at igda.org] On Behalf
Of kevin at kogsspin.com
Sent: 15 April 2009 4:37 PM
To: game_edu at igda.org
Subject: Re: [game_edu] Here goes the first shoe . . .


I totally agree with Susan and despite my agonizing efforts to try to  
seem "non-finger-pointy" I can see where I may have failed.  Having  
taught at two "for-profit" schools (I'm at one now), I was merely  
pointing out that they are more susceptible to these types of suits.   
When was the last time a land-grant university was sued for deceptive  
business practices?

Sorry if I caused offense, but I thought this would be a pertinent  
topic for this forum and knew someone had to just suck it up and post  
it.  Now I'm going to see if it made the IGDA forums yet.

As for my take on the situation, I'm in the "school is what you make  
of it" camp.  So even in the worst situations, the fact that you  
isolated so many hours a week for school and were exposed to  
techniques and textbooks means you should have left there with more  
knowledge and experience than when you entered.  If you sat there with  
your mouth open expecting to be spoon-fed an industry-acing education  
(at any school), then you began your journey on faulty premises and  
that is what we can fix.  We can make sure any freshly spawned  
developers-to-be know how to evaluate a program and pick the one that  
is right for his or her needs.

--Kevin

------------------------------

Message: 5
Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2009 18:00:08 -0700
From: Susan Gold <sgold at btrout.com>
Subject: Re: [game_edu] Here goes the first shoe . . .
To: IGDA Game Education Listserv <game_edu at igda.org>
Message-ID: <C60A7FA8.1C918%sgold at btrout.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"

I think this is an interesting topic, but please everyone, this is not a
pick on the ?for profit? program listserv. This is for thoughtful discourse.
Note, since this a lawsuit, I know students and school representatives can
not even discuss this in an open forum.

I hope that we all respect each other enough to realize that all programs
have some great and some bad instructors. Pointing a finger also means that
you have three fingers pointing back at yourself.

The type of thing that would make sense to me is if we can find a way to
help these students. Maybe they should all take Ian?s Free Summer Game
Design class? What other ideas might we be able to give them?

Susan

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