What is your Major?

[countrysteaksauce]

What is your college/university major? What made you choose it? Where are you going to school? Did your love of games influence your choice? If you're still in grade school, just give us your tentative choices.

I'll start by saying I'm going the route of computer science, and yes it was because of my love of games that I went down this path. Now, however, I realize that actually getting into game programming/design is rather difficult, so its a nice government job for me.

I want to see if anyone else has this situation or what other unique choices people have made.

 

[Lyiat]

A Bachelor of Arts in Game Design and Development.

 

[J-Man]

Well, I intend to do a major philosophy, with a minor political sciences.

 

[wewontdie11]

Biomedical Science. I made the error of pursuing something I was coerced into thinking I was interested in by family at a young age, rather than doing something I would actually enjoy.

It's not bad but I'd much rather have done Film or English Language.

 

[countrysteaksauce]

Biomedical Science. I made the error of pursuing something I was coerced into thinking I was interested in by family at a young age, rather than doing something I would actually enjoy.

It's not bad but I'd much rather have done Film or English Language.

It must be pretty tough studying that when you're not much into it.

I understand where you're coming from though, I would probably have gone into History or Writing if it wasn't impossible to get a job (non-teaching) with the former and hard to get one with the latter.

 

[dieseldub]

I went to school for Culinary Arts. Luckily people always need to eat, and therefore my major works out well. However I don't actually have a job having anything to do with what I went to school for. I use it now as more of a fallback to have if things go bad. If I lose a job...I usually go get a chef job.

 

[Bagaloo]

I'm doing History at the university of Sussex, south England.
I chose this course because it was my favourite subject in school whilst I was studying to get into uni, and it just seemed like the logical choice to carry it on.

My love of games definatly hasn't influenced my course, but my course has influenced my love of games; my timetable works out with a fair amount of free time, allowing my to pursue my love of gaming

 

[Galletea]

Languages. French and Italian. Languages are good, and although music is my first academic love, I'm not quite good enough at it.

 

[countrysteaksauce]

I'm doing History at the university of Sussex, south England.
I chose this course because it was my favourite subject in school whilst I was studying to get into uni, and it just seemed like the logical choice to carry it on.

My love of games definatly hasn't influenced my course, but my course has influenced my love of games; my timetable works out with a fair amount of free time, allowing my to pursue my love of gaming

That's perfect--studying and gaming. You must play a lot of history games then right?
My love of history falls right with my love of Medieval Total War and Civilization.

 

[SamuraiAndPig]

I went through lots of majors. When I was right out of high school I went to trade school for computer programming. I did fine but had a hard time getting a job afterward. I ended up working for Compaq in a factory but got laid off. I made enough there to get into a community college.

At some point I decided I didn't want to do anything with hardcore programming or computer science, so I majored in liberal arts and built up knowledge of classical literature (Greek mostly.) I took some time off from college and tried to work. I got a job tutoring at my old school and two years later got laid off again, took out a big loan and went to a four-year school.

Now I have a degree in New Media Studies, which is a mix of world literature, internet culture studies, graphic and web design, and a little programming. I got to study video games a little bit, mostly in terms of level design and aesthetic storytelling. Hopefully some of the work I did during those five semesters gets me into graduate school.

countrysteaksauce: From someone who knows - the computer industry is very hard to get into, and there are very few entry level positions for someone without a graduate degree. Most jobs want an MS and experience. More importantly, do what you love, and that's not some old person platonic advice. I lived for coding until I actually did and realized I hated it. I always loved writing and studying the art of writing and up until I became confident in my own ability didn't think I could get anywhere with it. Now I've got a degree in it, so it works.

Hope that helps.

 

[Combined]

History and Guard Duty/Policing. Tried programming too, but switched that over to Nuclear Physics.

Oh, Civilization, why did you sway me?

 

[sfrench11189]

Majoring in business/accounting at Texas A&M.

 

[Ophiuchus]

Apparently my major is meant to be Psychology but, having effectively abandoned any pretence of going to classes or doing work (like, for example, the 2500-word essay due in about 16 hours that I haven't even considered starting yet), I don't think I can really claim that.

So right now I'm majoring in sleep, with minors in gaming, ignoring alarm calls before finally getting up at 6pm, caffeine addiction and self-sabotage. It's a sweet deal.

 

[Bagaloo]

I'm doing History at the university of Sussex, south England.
I chose this course because it was my favourite subject in school whilst I was studying to get into uni, and it just seemed like the logical choice to carry it on.

My love of games definatly hasn't influenced my course, but my course has influenced my love of games; my timetable works out with a fair amount of free time, allowing my to pursue my love of gaming

That's perfect--studying and gaming. You must play a lot of history games then right?
My love of history falls right with my love of Medieval Total War and Civilization.

Actually, no
Recent games have been Prince of Persia, Bioshock, Mirror's Edge and a little bit of World of Warcraft. I don't think history influences my choice of game at all

 

[xitel]

Undecided. Probably going to go for something in the Social Sciences field.

 

[SeaCalMaster]

Math. Go math!

 

[-Seraph-]

Instrumentation & Engineering, and after finishing that I may go back and get an electrician degree. I can get a job in a lot of places with those two or even the I&E degree alone. I find it odd no one else has mentioned something along the lines of a skilled trade or something. All this business, arts and doctor stuff but no engineers or something?

 

[Good morning blues]

Majoring in Communications and minoring in Political Science at Simon Fraser University. I'll probably either stick in the academy or go into broadcasting. Video games didn't affect my decision at all although I do a lot of textual analysis of video games for communications and will probably write my honours thesis about representations of war in video games.