Edumacation
I can hardly believe it, since it seems such a short time ago that I was freaking out about which uni or course to apply for and then whether or not I would be accepted, but I'm already a whole sixth of the way through this degree - or at least I will be once exams are over, but I'm not too worried about those.
In the end the choice of games & graphics programming at RMIT wasn't so much an 'I definitely have to do this' kind of thing as it was a 'this seems like the least uncertain choice' thing. I half expected that by a few months in, I'd be feeling unsure or perhaps that I hadn't made the best choice, that maybe I should have gone for the game design course, or geospatial science, network engineering or something else after all. That maybe I had succumbed to a momentary lapse of judgement, and just jumped at an old childhood dream with questionable job prospects. That perhaps my decision was based on the interests of the girl I had a crush on, and not my own. See, I have this issue with mistrusting my own motivations.
But at this point I'm just feeling a huge sense of relief, because it's turning out better than I could have hoped. Of course there will always be some lingering feeling of 'what if' surrounding the myriad other options - that whole angst of 'I'm not making one choice; I'm cutting off all the other choices'. But everyone has that, and I think I've come to terms with it. I suppose in my case it was a little more urgent, since I have been to university before and so this is a little more of a 'last chance' kind of thing (my Austudy payments run out in 18 months, among other things), but there was no getting around that. I feel confident that it was the soundest choice possible, given what I wanted and what I knew at the time.
The first and third years revolve around group projects, with the other classes largely supporting these. I was very lucky on the first day to be sitting at a table of people that got along well, and we formed a team straight away and got to work on our game. Some other people either formed teams but didn't really end up being friends or communicating well, or didn't manage to find a team at all and had to be lumped into one by the staff. So even though I am (mostly) happy with the course itself, our team was fortunate, and I'm not taking it for granted. A few teams produced games that had more impressive-looking content than ours, but inside info says that these games were often incomplete or buggy - sometimes a result of the design aiming too high - or were all style over substance, with little in the way of new gameplay. Our game was (I thought) fairly modest, but solid, complete and bug-free, which counts for a lot. Couldn't be more satisfied. Besides, it's pretty awesome handing in a computer game for a piece of uni assessment, which happens to be graded by my housemate.
The other classes are alright. I've enjoyed Programming 1, since it seems I have knack for Java programming, although it's a little annoying that we are actually using Javascript (not the same thing as Java) in the other classes. The same programming principles apply, but we have to basically teach ourselves the details of Javascript. There's a Web3D class, involving the basics of 3D geometry and OpenGL shader language, which drives everyone up the wall a bit. It's not very well taught or assessed - I've spent about 20% of the time actually learning about and doing the 3D stuff it's meant to focus on, and the rest of the time just struggling with the peripheral Javascript crap to make it actually work. Then there's Mathematics For Computing. I swore at the end of high school that I'd never touch maths again, but it's a required class. Turns out it was an unfounded fear; my grade average is near 100%.
So my grades are great and things are going swimmingly. I still have a bunch of other worries - job, money, time for creative things, other social/personal stuff - but at least I can cross off 'education and possible career' off that list of major hangups. The video games industry in Melbourne (and basically this whole country) has collapsed over the last few years, and there are no jobs available at the moment, but I'll end up with standard IT/programming skills that should be valuable in plenty of places. I'm keeping an open mind, and for now just enjoying learning new skills. Most days I can say I'm a more capable person than I was yesterday, and that's very satisfying.
In the end the choice of games & graphics programming at RMIT wasn't so much an 'I definitely have to do this' kind of thing as it was a 'this seems like the least uncertain choice' thing. I half expected that by a few months in, I'd be feeling unsure or perhaps that I hadn't made the best choice, that maybe I should have gone for the game design course, or geospatial science, network engineering or something else after all. That maybe I had succumbed to a momentary lapse of judgement, and just jumped at an old childhood dream with questionable job prospects. That perhaps my decision was based on the interests of the girl I had a crush on, and not my own. See, I have this issue with mistrusting my own motivations.
But at this point I'm just feeling a huge sense of relief, because it's turning out better than I could have hoped. Of course there will always be some lingering feeling of 'what if' surrounding the myriad other options - that whole angst of 'I'm not making one choice; I'm cutting off all the other choices'. But everyone has that, and I think I've come to terms with it. I suppose in my case it was a little more urgent, since I have been to university before and so this is a little more of a 'last chance' kind of thing (my Austudy payments run out in 18 months, among other things), but there was no getting around that. I feel confident that it was the soundest choice possible, given what I wanted and what I knew at the time.
The first and third years revolve around group projects, with the other classes largely supporting these. I was very lucky on the first day to be sitting at a table of people that got along well, and we formed a team straight away and got to work on our game. Some other people either formed teams but didn't really end up being friends or communicating well, or didn't manage to find a team at all and had to be lumped into one by the staff. So even though I am (mostly) happy with the course itself, our team was fortunate, and I'm not taking it for granted. A few teams produced games that had more impressive-looking content than ours, but inside info says that these games were often incomplete or buggy - sometimes a result of the design aiming too high - or were all style over substance, with little in the way of new gameplay. Our game was (I thought) fairly modest, but solid, complete and bug-free, which counts for a lot. Couldn't be more satisfied. Besides, it's pretty awesome handing in a computer game for a piece of uni assessment, which happens to be graded by my housemate.
The other classes are alright. I've enjoyed Programming 1, since it seems I have knack for Java programming, although it's a little annoying that we are actually using Javascript (not the same thing as Java) in the other classes. The same programming principles apply, but we have to basically teach ourselves the details of Javascript. There's a Web3D class, involving the basics of 3D geometry and OpenGL shader language, which drives everyone up the wall a bit. It's not very well taught or assessed - I've spent about 20% of the time actually learning about and doing the 3D stuff it's meant to focus on, and the rest of the time just struggling with the peripheral Javascript crap to make it actually work. Then there's Mathematics For Computing. I swore at the end of high school that I'd never touch maths again, but it's a required class. Turns out it was an unfounded fear; my grade average is near 100%.
So my grades are great and things are going swimmingly. I still have a bunch of other worries - job, money, time for creative things, other social/personal stuff - but at least I can cross off 'education and possible career' off that list of major hangups. The video games industry in Melbourne (and basically this whole country) has collapsed over the last few years, and there are no jobs available at the moment, but I'll end up with standard IT/programming skills that should be valuable in plenty of places. I'm keeping an open mind, and for now just enjoying learning new skills. Most days I can say I'm a more capable person than I was yesterday, and that's very satisfying.