Explain to Mike this Uni thing?

[Madrun Badrun]

I made this post and was promptly ignored so it gets its own thread!   


Ok am I an idiot or are uni websites extremely complex, like a tangled web of info and links - never reaching an end.

how does class selection work? 

Do I just select a degree and fill in the blanks on class options when they allow it?  How much freedom will I have, because while I want to do cop sci, I want to take as much philosophy and history as possible? 

How do double majors work? 

Was everyone as confused as I am when they were going to go into their first year as uni?

I can't find software engineering any were at UofH   :'(  Maybe its in the engineering courses and not comp sci...

 


This thing is stressing. 

[MrAngryFace]

Become a Hobo

[demi]

Go talk to a counselor. That is what they are there for.

And yes, college/uni is extremely confusing. I think that's why I haven't gone yet.

[Madrun Badrun]

Go talk to a counselor. That is what they are there for.

I did that once.  I was told to go to the uni's website 

[Himu]

Why are you so set on UoH? Houston sucks.

[Madrun Badrun]

Why are you so set on UoH? Houston sucks.

We'll it makes sense to move there because after uni Austen, which has a growing development community, would be a short move.  California would make the most sense in that regard but it would be to expensive.   My other choice would be BC.  I know I want to move away from here but I want to be some place similar so Texas would be that.  Plus my grads aren't great, well there strange, there about 1/3 high 80's and 90's, 1/3 mid 70's 1/3 borderline failing (fucking gym!  ), so I can't go to grate schools.     

[Smooth Groove]

You should just take a bunch of general requirement classes that interest you in the 1st semester as you're getting adjusted to college life.  Most schools should have a bunch of general requirements that everyone needs to take so you can do those while deciding what major to focus on.  You should find out carefully about a major's requirements before taking their classes.  Most majors are pretty easy to get in but some really popular majors like Computer Science and Business might have higher requirements.  At my school, most people only got to major in CS if they got at least a 3.5 GPA in the prereqs.  Before you decide on a Major, check to see if you can get in immediately once you fulfill the prereqs or if you have to apply and wait for the program's decision.  For double Majors, you have to fulfill all the requirements of both Majors so you're going to be taking a lot of extra classes if the two Majors don't overlap in any area. 

[Madrun Badrun]

thanks!

So for first year does GPA from highschool matter for selecting a major, or do they only look at first year uni GPA?

[Himu]

gpa doesn't matter when selecting a major. Once you're in...you're in.

[Smooth Groove]

thanks!

So for first year does GPA from highschool matter for selecting a major, or do they only look at first year uni GPA?

Once you get into the College, you get a clean slate.  No one will praise you if you had a great high school GPA and no one will look down on you for having a crap high school GPA.  If you do good in College, no one will ever care about how badly you did in high school. 

[Smooth Groove]

Not neccesarily.  Some majors require a minimum GPA. 

Only if you want to get in the Major your very first semester though, right?  I think you can apply for most programs after your 1st year even if you didn't get into the program straight out of high school.  As far as I know, they only look at college grades if you apply into the program after you are already a college student. 

[demi]

You're moving from Canada to Texas?

[Madrun Badrun]

I hope to.  I know I'm going to move out of this province, probably to the U.S.  in the next year.  BC and Texas are my top choices, so far. 

[bluemax]

A lot of these factors depend on the school but I'll answer based on my university.

I was admitted to USC back in 2001 as a B.S. in Aerospace Engineering with an Emphasis on Astronautics major (rocket science!).

I cam down to the school about a month before classes started and went through orientation where I took a bunch of placement tests and went to some presentations about various stuff (loans, housing, meal plans, extracurriculars etc). Finally I visited with an advisor and based on my placement results and degree objective I planned out a first semester schedule.

Then a month later I came back, moved in and started going to classes etc.

As far as things go here, we have a course catalog that says what classes are required for a degree in something and it usually has a sample course plan for every semester. Things are of course flexible based upon AP credit, placement exams and advisor's. For example here are the current degree requirements for a BS in CSCI: http://www.cs.usc.edu/admissions/undergrad/CSBRO.pdf These are different than what I have completed to get my B.S. CSCI thanks to transfer credit, and an super awesome advisor as well as me being on a different course catalog.

W/R/T course selection freedom, it again depends upon the school and program. CS here is pretty structured and they actually cut down the number of tech electives CS majors choose from (they added two more required classes and took away two tech electives). However tuition doesn't change if you're taking 16 units (the average 4 class load) or 18 units so a lot of times people do tricky things so they can take 5 classes in a semester.

Double majoring is pretty crazy and a lot of times people do it in overlapping fields to cut down on the number of classes. I honestly don't know how it works for different majors.

Minoring is pretty easy if its related to your major. As a CS major I probably could easily minor in EE or Math. I'm actually going to end up 1 elective short of a minor in game programming (the minor was 4 additional classes and I had to make two of my tech electives certain classes but that was no big deal).

Uh yeah hope that helps, I probably missed some of your questions if so let me know and I'll try to answer them.

Not neccesarily.  Some majors require a minimum GPA. 

Only if you want to get in the Major your very first semester though, right?  I think you can apply for most programs after your 1st year even if you didn't get into the program straight out of high school.  As far as I know, they only look at college grades if you apply into the program after you are already a college student. 

Depends upon the school and program. I started taking CS classes without having my major officially changed and I probably could've taken Film School classes had I wanted. Actually switching majors to Cinema would've been a lot harder than switching to CS was though.

[Smooth Groove]

Has anyone been to the University of Texas at Austin or Texas Tech?  Those schools are beautiful.  Texans are so freaking rich. 

[Madrun Badrun]

Thanks Blue.  The comp sci electives scare me because there just as restrictive here.  Also what game programing like?  do a lot of schools offer stuff on game design/development?  because we don't have anything like that here. 


btw guys which is the better school U of H or U of Texas?

[brawndolicious]

USC is supposed to have a very exclusive film program so I wouldn't compare it.

I heard game programming is usually pretty useless as a degree.  Not enough focus on one job (modeling, art, programming, etc.)

Newsweek has a top universities of the year list but texas is really assy, move to california even if you can't get accepted to a university and at least get your associates.

[bluemax]

Thanks Blue.  The comp sci electives scare me because there just as restrictive here.  Also what game programing like?  do a lot of schools offer stuff on game design/development?  because we don't have anything like that here. 


btw guys which is the better school U of H or U of Texas?

All my tech electives have been more or less exploratory classes. They throw a bunch of different stuff at you in order to get you interested in a particular field. None of them was particularly hard. Graphics was awesome, web programming felt like it could've been a lot better, and databases was awful. I'm taking AI in the fall.

Game programming courses are kind of a mixed bag. They're all still kind of new so the teaching methodology is so inexact. The people teaching are still developing their styles and what not so it can be frustrating at times. I spent part of a semester in a game design class where I was supposed to be doing programming and it felt a little too much like the real world for me, unrealistic expectations, designers with no clue, people who don't know how to communicate with engineers, people who don't know how to communicate etc. I didn't have time for it with my required courses and I wasn't registered for it so I kinda stopped showing, which was bad but meh. I'm actually registered for the same course this fall so it could be either a really good resume builder or a horrific nightmare.

The intro to game programming class I took was kinda meh. If I was motivated I could've learned all the stuff in about a month with a $40 book.

From what I've heard of mobile games and networking games they're basically project courses. So if you enjoy not having tests or any structure or help and like working semi independently they can be cool. You just have to realize if you don't deliver you get no grade.

USC is supposed to have a very exclusive film program so I wouldn't compare it.

I heard game programming is usually pretty useless as a degree.  Not enough focus on one job (modeling, art, programming, etc.)

Newsweek has a top universities of the year list but texas is really assy, move to california even if you can't get accepted to a university and at least get your associates.

Well yeah its supposedly number one in the world. My main point was that some programs are easier to switch into than others regardless of the school. Also cross discipline switching (ie from one type of engineering to another or one science to another) is easier than going to something else unrelated.

I don't know why you'd do game programming if you wanted to be an artist or a modeler. Those are art skills. Even if you wanted to be a technical artist you wouldn't do game programming. You might take graphics, which is a generalist CS tech elective, and then take animation and modeling courses. Intro game programming teaches you basic game programming things like game loops, and some rendering stuff etc. It takes CS concepts and applies it to specific game programming things. Then we have Game Engines which takes more CS concepts and applies to specific areas of designing an engine. The other main courses for the minor are project courses that get your feet wet in developing specific types of games (handheld/mobile, serious, networked).

We do now have a game programming major, which is almost a normal CS degree still. They just took out the generalist courses that make you a better CS major and made them courses about game hardware or programming. At the end of the day though the curriculum is all new so its hard to say how good any of it is or isn't. Most of the companies I've applied to their first thing is to see that you have a good set of CS fundamentals, and then they like you to show that you have other skills or programming experience related to games if possible.

[Smooth Groove]

Thanks Blue.  The comp sci electives scare me because there just as restrictive here.  Also what game programing like?  do a lot of schools offer stuff on game design/development?  because we don't have anything like that here. 


btw guys which is the better school U of H or U of Texas?

If you want to get into CS, then you might want to pick a school where you can either get in CS automatically or where the requirements aren't as high.  I know several Californian friends who chose not to go to Berkeley because they knew that it was really hard to get into the CS program at Berkeley.  Which Texas U are you talking about?  I know that UT Austin is pretty highly regarded, and is possibly better than most U of California.