I know that many of us here on the forum are students, so I was just wondering where everyone is studying and what you're pursuing. As for me, I'm in my 3rd year in the animation program at Northeastern University in Boston, mass. Its a decent program - we exclusively use Maya for our animation studios and the professors are usually knowledgeable and sometimes taken directly from local game companies. I'm considering a graduate degree in animation, but I haven't really started looking around yet, as Northeastern has a five year program so I still have over two years to go. My main beef with the school is that besides the animation studio classes (which introduce the students to modeling and focus heavily on character animation), they offer very little in the way of specific courses oriented towards advanced 3d modeling, texture creation and lighting. Most of what I have learned about these topics has been through the online community.

So what about you?
 

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XNA development blog:
http://dpdevelopment.blogspot.com/

I´m finishing my graduation in Physics in UFRJ -Brazil (4 years total) , and I will start my after graduation in 3D game development in the UVA university (1,5 year), it covers programing and a bit of modeling too. It seems a bit short but it requires full dedication.

After that I  intend start working with game development. If I don´t find a company that will hire me, which is very likely to happen, I will try to create a small company, since I have a few friends with the same desire.

I'm studying general computer programming and web design/development. Pretty standard stuff for the wanna-be professional code monkey :). When I finish up (two years left), I plan to head out to Washington and try to get a job for either a small games company, Microsoft (in either their Xbox or XNA areas would be sweet), or start my own little game development studio.

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Nick Gravelyn -- Microsoft XNA MVP
XNA Wiki | EasyZip | EasyConfig

Its awesome to hear that other students are interested in starting up small studios. Im hoping to use my experience in art direction for my XNA game as a launching pad for future work with the same team of friends. I really think that indi development is going to keep growing and the members of forums like this will be well known in the industry down the road.

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XNA development blog:
http://dpdevelopment.blogspot.com/

I start my classes with Devry University in a couple of months. I'm taking their Gaming and Simulation Programming. I have been programming for years but without a degree. I figure that I wanted to learn to program games and Devry was the best place to start.

Currently I am taking the XNA Foundation course from PixelBox Academy. I am planning in work on the gamedev industry in a couple of years. Forums like this one are really cool for people who are starting to work with XNA.

Cheers 

-j 

I'm doing a Bachelor of Games and Interactive Entertainment- basically three years of game programming with XNA, at QUT.

I'm study computer programming in the University [Universidad Autonoma Metropolitana - México City], and now, i working in the creation and launching [in the next days] of the Videogame Laboratory.

This project is not only to create professionals, also glides to enter in the market developing games.

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| Because play them is not enough |

I'm currently at Brunel University West London studying straight Computer Science BSc with Digital Game Theory MA. Just about to finish my first year!

At the moment game development is just a casual hobby, although I would really love to get into the industry once I graduate. Unfortunatly I don't really have much of a portfolio, a text-based adventure game here, a tetris clone there, etc.

I just finished a computer science degree from Florida State, and in the fall I'm going to start at FIEA (fiea.ucf.edu), which is a grad school in Orlando with a master's in interactive entertainment.

They offer 3 tracks, programmers, producers, and artists. The real bonus is the student to teacher ratio is excellent and all the professors have real world experience, many of them coming from (or still working at) Electronic Art's Tiburon studio which is only a few miles from here (they make the Madden games among others) so when you graduate, they have excellent job placement.

Wow, that sounded like an advertisement. :)

art4drunk:

As for me, I'm in my 3rd year in the animation program at Northeastern University in Boston, mass.

I know a gal who goes there with you. She loves Boston.

As for me, I study Computer Science at CU Boulder.

I am currently in my Final Project (design and build a 3-D game in 5 months) at Full Sail in Winter Park, Florida.  The specific degree program that I am in is a Bachelor of Science in Game Design and Development (almost all completely programming based, very little in terms of design which is probably why it is now called just Game Development).  Not a bad program at all, and you really do learn a whole lot.  As for length, this degree program is short by normal standards (21 months) but you go to class for 40 hours a week.  Not that bad of a program over all.

I attended both Florida State and Full Sail.

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Dean Johnson, SDET - XNA Community Game Platform Team

I am a senior in high school, and I have been accepted into Full Sail for the Game Development Degree Course.

I have had 2 courses in C++ programming, and I have attended multiple workshops detailing AI, Physics, Architecture, and Engine Development in Washington.

I am a first year student at Sami Shamoon College of Engineering in Israel. I study Software Engineering and trying to get the  BSc degree.

I liked to program since school,and now I am really happy now that I have an opportunity to study the thing that I love-programming. We study mathematics -all kinds of it,digital systems,C language ,introduction to physics.

 I think that programming can change the way people live,and I think that the technology can open unseen horizons for the humanity.The thought that I myself can participate in that is very thrilling to me.

I want to learn C# and it would be great if I wrote a game (even a simple one). But I have exams coming in a month,so I cannot study it and XNA a lot:(.

Valentine.

The person going to QUT.. That's near me! (Lamo rhyme) Don't they focus on Pascal? (My programming lecturer use to go there, and he said they're one of the only places in the world using Pascal because they helped develop it or something.)

I'm doing a Bachelor of Interactive Entertainment majoring in games programming at QANTM College, in Brisbane, AU. We focus on programming with C++. We did an introduction to 3D modelling using 3DS Max 9 (modelling is fun, but UV mapping is the most boringest thing ever) and working with bipeds and lighting and all that. And we had Communication Design (learning about project management, presenting yourself, writing essays, using business-structured language) and Principles of Design (we learnt about 2D theory (how colours, typography, lines/spacing, overall design) and we used Photoshop and Illistrator). I just listed my first trimester :) I can't wait to see what the next one holds.

I'm a student in computer science at the ETH Zürich, in switzerland. I'm taking a class in "game programming", where we use XNA and code a game for xbox360 in groups of three people.

Hello ... My name is Piotr and I'm a student from Poland. I have 2 months to end my studing in the Poznań University of Technology in Poznań:). I know much more about web-development than making games. I worked in small studio making simple 3d game for child. We worked for Polish developer ... Techland (Chrome, Chrome2, Call of Juraez, Xpand Rally - maybe this titles tell You something:)) ... but a weak ago I was fired:). My Colegue haven't got money to paid me:) ... because budget has ended:) so now I'm fighting with XNA:). I was java programer in this project. Engine is in C++ and with java we conect to it ... it was great job but unfortunately has ended:(. In Poland is a few game developers :( ... maybe 4:) ... so i suppose I wil not find job in this industry in Poland. Now I hard lern C# and XNA and I'm trying to do simple engine and later a simple game. Greetings to all !!! Sorry for my broken english:)

I guess I'm the odd one. Just doing a Bachelors in Computer Science at North Carolina State University. I wish we had a game programming major. Heh.

I'm at my first year studying Maths at the Ludwig-Maximilians university in Munich. One of the very few "elite" universities in Germany. It's sad we have no game design or programing courses. Well, self teaching is more fun anyways ;-)

Finished my first year in Computing at Brunel university. I never knew that so many people are doing courses on XNA!

Currently doing my exams for the end of 2nd year Computing Science in Glasgow Uni. Yeah I should be studying, but I was bored...

Looking forward to properly getting into my XNA project over the summer though

I'm finishing my first year (out of two) in this game development education over at Stockholm University, Sweden. However this education seems rather slacky and I think anyone motivated would be better off studying this subject on their own. I mean hey.. after a year we've made some one window GUI in Java.. and a basic pathfinding algorithm. Oh yea..

Luckily I'm motivated enough to do my own study :p

(I did study Biotechnology for a year before I decided it required too much studying and motivation that I didn't have at the time..)

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Projectlaina

I study computer science in games technology at La Trobe university (located in Melbourne, Australia), though in all seriousness most of it doesn't have much to do with games technology but generel computer science stuff. It's good because if I don't get a job in the games industry when I finish (in about three years time) I will have enough skills to go into some other field.

Though I really hate their physics course which is a compulsory, it not only has next to nothing to do with games but has nothing to do with computer science in general, it won't do me any good on my resume and I almost couldn't care less if I failed it (which I actually did, this is my second time through and my mid year exam is in two weeks).

Bleh, I always vent about that physics subject, I hate it with such a passion, kind of ironic too that the game I'm working on has one particularly nasty collision detection problem I can't seem to fix (physics just doesn't like me I suppose).

I'm working on a Bachelor's degree in Game Art and Design at Art Institute of Seattle.  Yeah, an art school.  We focus much more on asset creation and character/level design in our program, but I'm trying to learn programming as well.  "Jack of all trades, master of one" says I.

I'm also taking the XNA Xtreme 101 course over at 3D Buzz.  It's a total beginner course on both XNA and C# in general.  We've done a text-based game (Zork, anyone?) and a simple top-down space shooter so far.  1 week down, 7 more to go.