Is Westwood College worth it? (Update)

#21 I think that one of the qa lab managers attended devry before coming to full sail. Michael and I are both FS grads so I'll add my thoughts later when I'm not cruising the forums while waiting for my food at cracker barrel. Though after Michael's excellent posts I don't know if I'll have much to add.

#22 Michael and Scott:

I spoke today with Full Sail regarding their new Online Game Design program and it just clicked perfect for me, it's only $54k versus $75k for Game Dev on campus and has classes like Level editing and storyboarding which are my style, plus it has math, physics, and programming and it'll allow me to cross train with a nice core education. I just wanted to say thank you for telling me your experiences and how they've helped me find a path that will lead me the rest of my life.

I'd love to hear more about your experiences starting out, and I think maybe others could get some good out of it too.

#23 So much more work to do, so much research and choices. Since this board has a good community I'm going to post my cell number here (XXX-XXX-XXXX) and ask for one of you guys that have done Full Sail or DeVry to call me so I can throw some questions at you. Btw the new Torque QA department looks awesome, I recall some late nights doing QA work on a friend's game, hard but quite rewarding (yes that's a hint lol).

#24 Nnnnnnooooo. Don't post your cell here. This is a public board and we have a spam bot problem. I've edited your post before any damage is done. It's safer to post an IM handle, like something for AIM or GoogleTalk.

#25 LOL Future game makers fear no spam bots! However, my email is everheart000@gmail.com (same for GoogleTalk) so get in touch with me there.

#26 For anyone keeping up with this thread, I've decided on DeVry's Game and Simulation Programming B.S. degree. Not only have I spoken to students and alumni but have done extensive research on the classwork and methods for teaching.

Full Sail's online Game Design program doesn't include a LOT of the math and programming I'm interested in, only focusing on design work such as storyboarding and level editing. While these are great, I'd like a more rounded education including math, programming, modeling, music, and to be allowed to do this online instead of on campus.

I am a stay at home father, and there is NO WAY that I can attend Full Sail on campus in the next 5 years, I want to start college before this year ends and this is the best fit for me. I truly appreciate those of you who have emailed me, to Michael for giving me an outstanding review on Full Sail and I wish I could attend on campus, and thanks to Scott for cheering me on.

I know I'll be working with Torque in the near future and I'm glad there is such a great community here that everyone can help someone new to the industry in this capacity. Good karma all around!

I hope to stay in touch with you guys and perhaps work with you in the future. I'm going to focus on programming and QA to start, learn what I can in design, level editing, mods, etc and find what best suits me. For all I know I may fall in love with testing games that I stick with that or become a life long level editor or code monkey. Wanna start putting bets on me now?

My only final hurdle is Financial Aid, my wife and I have poor credit due to some hardships we both suffered a few years ago and we're hoping we can get enough money to pay for college, if anyone knows of specific grants or scholarships, please let me know. I will be hunting them down as well.

Thanks again and sorry if I ramble, I do that sometimes ;)

#27 Hey im planning on joining a game development and programming course and i dont want it online.. its an on-site education plan im looking at. I was choosing between westwood college Los Angeles, CA , Full Sail University Winterpark, FL and DeVry University Orlando, FL
Im an international student and wanted help in choosing the best. I dont think the tuition should be a problem so besides the cost which would be the best for game development and programming from these or are there any other universities to choose from? please let me know

#28 Greetings,

I felt I needed to write a fair and unbiased view of Westwood Online, because most of the reviews I see aren’t.

I decided on game art design because I felt it would give greater degree of flexibility. I also choose Westwood Online over SCAD and Ringling. The curriculum for Westwood looked more intense and challenging and I wouldn’t have to relocate. I also came to the realization that I was going to have to learn a lot of software packages and I needed to learn the fundamentals of drawing and I didn’t want to tackle either solely via online coursese.

I enrolled at ITT for a few hands on courses. It was quite funny because this was a very expensive school, but you would see the 18 - 20 some year olds not doing the work or labs, instead they were surfing the web, playing video games or whatever, and undoubtedly failing the courses or just barely passing!!! The same students who were trashing ITT were the same ones goofing off during class!

I took courses in Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, Flash, 3Dmax, intro to programming, and drawing & perspective. I really enjoyed my time at ITT and think that’s it’s a great school, it’s like anything else you get out – what you put in. After completing these courses I felt I was ready for Westwood.

To be honest Online education isn’t for everyone, if you can’t learn from textbooks or the web; or if you’re the type of person that needs to have something demonstrated or shown to you once or twice before you can get it - then you probably shouldn’t be enrolling in a Online Degree Program.

Honestly the instructors and communication with them really suck at Westwood. That being said, I found the curriculum to be awesome (much greater detail then what was covered at ITT), and also the textbooks, software, and toolkits provided by the school are equally as awesome.

I'm entering my second year at Westwood with an -A GPA and I can really say I've already learned quite a bit. I’ve landed a part-time job teaching animation for an afterschool program, and make money working on side projects after only attending ITT and Westwood for one year ( I was taking courses at both schools simultaneously, I didn’t exceed 16 units a quarter). Though I had to teach myself a lot of the stuff (Westwood) - I could never have done it without the curriculum, books, lecture materials and tools provided by Westwood.

The most difficult aspect to realize with the degrees in this area, you need to have a great portfolio to get a job. That means you really have to apply yourself when it comes to the course work, and then find the time to expand upon what you have learned because no curriculum alone is going to get you prepared for the real world or composing your portfolio. Sharpening your abilities so you can compile an outstanding portfolio is going to be your greatest challenge. Those who do will be too busy working, and those who don’t will be here online whining.

Carl