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thanks, its comforting to know that its not always needed to have degrees under your belt, as i probably never will have.

also, do you think i'd be better trying to go for the big hitters like Ubisoft and Bethesda, or sticking with the small fry companies, like free radical, or lionhead studios? (even though lionhead is quickly becoming a big hitter in its own right)

penguin_king wrote:thanks, its comforting to know that its not always needed to have degrees under your belt, as i probably never will have.

also, do you think i'd be better trying to go for the big hitters like Ubisoft and Bethesda, or sticking with the small fry companies, like free radical, or lionhead studios? (even though lionhead is quickly becoming a big hitter in its own right)

It's too soon to answer such a question. Only time will tell. When you'll be ready, you'll send resumes to tons of companies and take what's in your best interest. Most of the time, bigger companies have better social benefits, but it's not always true. (And social benefits are just an aspect among others.) Don't focus on the place you want to work, but on the job you want to do. The rest will come in time.

yeah, i guess im getting a little carried away eh?

i'll wait 'till ive at least finished my first year before i start looking too much into it... but its just good to know that i dont need to go to university, and that pretty much every company is almost always looking for programmers.

thanks for all the help and advice

penguin_king wrote:thanks, its comforting to know that its not always needed to have degrees under your belt, as i probably never will have.

Don't even THINK that thought. There is no such thing as a shortcut in employment, and your job and job security is entirely dependent on your degree of education. When the down-times come, as they inevitably do, the uneducated fanboys are the first to go. In a business with 200+ people, you don't count skill or nice behaviour, you look at the CV and cut from there. Trust me, I've been there. A degree, any degree, moves you in front of the line. Go to "university!" It's the best years of your life, things stick like glue in your brain, and when you're finished, you get to pick and choose from top-end jobs. I know this is hard to explain to a person in High School, but please don't scoff at education. Hell, I got my first bachelor at 40, and I'm taking higher education as a hobby right now.:laugh:

Moonbiter wrote:Don't even THINK that thought. There is no such thing as a shortcut in employment, and your job and job security is entirely dependent on your degree of education.

And again, that entirely depends on the country or region he is from. Work ethics and all that hockey. I hear in England the fact that you have a specific degree doesn't matter much as to the jobs you intend to apply for, not compared to the Netherlands at least. It varies greatly from place to place.

@P, you're best off asking around yourself. This isn't a done deal if you only intend to ask around on forums.

Tricky wrote:And again, that entirely depends on the country or region he is from. Work ethics and all that hockey. I hear in England the fact that you have a specific degree doesn't matter much as to the jobs you intend to apply for, not compared to the Netherlands at least. It varies greatly from place to place.

I'm sorry, but you're dead wrong. The chances of getting a "free-ride" job may vary, but in the EU and Europe, the same rules apply. As an employer living on the arse-end of Europe, I know what I'm talking about. Three rules apply when someone comes to me and ask for a job:

1. Education. The higher the better.
2. Experience. I like to employ people who's been around a bit. Not too much, though. I want loyalty, and if you've had eight jobs in three years, you're out.
3. Attitude. I'm not interested in people kissing my furry behind, but you have to show some sort of interest in what you're going to do, and start using your head BEFORE you apply for the job. Do you really want to be here, or is it just a paycheck?

The same standards apply for every workplace in Europe, and they're getting harsher by the minute. In the IT-business for instance, the implementation of a European certificate for IT-professionals called EUCIP has been in the works for some time. It's been created to make sure that if you hire an IT-consultant to work for you, he or she knows what they're doing. That means: Weed out the knownots who learned programming in their parent's basement and are calling themselves "IT-consultants." I'm sure you have them in Holland too... they're usually at the other end of the line when you call "support."

I'm ranting a bit here, but I want to get back to the message: When the bad times come (and I guess you've seen the SLIGHT downturn in global economy unless you've been living under a rock) the only thing you have to lean on is what you know, and the ability to document that. That's your "sharp elbows" in line when everyone else is looking for a job.

@P, you're best off asking around yourself. This isn't a done deal if you only intend to ask around on forums.

Take it easy on him, he was just curious about what qualifications he would need.

And I think Moonbiter is right, you need to show an interest in what you are doing as well as showing what you can do.

Skorm's Reaper

@ Moonbiter: I'm afraid I'll keep disagreeing with you to the bitter end.

@ P: You seem genuinely interested in gaming and capable with programming. A friend of mine recently made an interesting point about ICT career types. They can be divided in two archetypes, the ones that were figuring out how to hide their porn at age 11, and the ones who heard there was money in 'that computer stuff'. The latter category nowadays being a royal headache to former, it isn't hard to see why that whole free-for-all work ethic is gone. For example, prospects were good when I started studying Information Engineering around 1999. Three years later I had to bail out prematurely because I grew up and started paying attention to the whole scope of the industry I was gearing towards. An important aspect of the bachelor program was making people ready to start their own business. That was.. taught well, but in practise it turned out many of these new companies went bankrupt after a few years. The extend of it was something that could not have been predicted when they, as freshmen, first read the flyer and decided they would score serious money points if they were to become an Information Engineer. Having large debts at a young age isn't a good way to get your working life started. Anyway, that's just one thing that happened, probably completely unrelated to you. The only point I'm trying to make (at length ) is that you can't count on what will happen or how you will feel in five or six years.

You must do what you feel is right, of course.

a slight problem, i asked my computing teacher and he said that we most likely wont look at any C++.

he did say, however, that once you have a strong knowledge of Pascal and Delphi and are able to structure code well then picking up a book and learning another code language wont be too hard.