Task 23: Life Changing or Career Building?

This is a tough subject to talk about.

Courses centered around the games industry are a bit hit and miss, its quite a strange turn from the more "Acedemic" courses where things are centered around memorising dates and figures. Essentially they are creative based courses be it arts or in the programming side of things. Doing things for a reason - a finished game or level. Sure the acedemic courses make students learn figures and dates for a reason but its not quite the same sort of thing.

In comparison to these courses in question I think I prefer the way the art based courses go about, basically as Iv learned in my foundation art course prior you drive down your own path. If you need help or assistance ask, its about being mature and finding out things on your own rather than being rammed facts down your throat. I can understand some courses need that but for this subject (and me as a person) I prefer how this course unfolds.
During secondary school you were so used to be telling exactly what to do that students going into this faculty arnt used to the freedom found in later stages of education.
Game Art as a course is not the same as foundation art, its a little more centered around games, not only drawn artwork but also in 3d packages. Franckly I prefer art which has a purpose rather than the rubbish you usually get with modern art. I have heard from many people that getting a job in fineart is so difficult as it doesnt really have much of a direction. Though I respect art sometimes things get so farfetched that it becomes useless and uncreative.

Obviously for us it does require some technical learning with the computer programs we use but it still retains this art style course, you cannot tell everyone everything that the program in question can do. Its basically about understanding what you want to acomplish then findout and do it rather than being spoonfed. Some may argue that this may waste time but sometimes the things you work with surprise you which is better than knowing everything at once. It retains the creativity to not realise how much a program can do, it somehow forces you to challenge your preconceptions.

Education in this field is a trickey thing, it would be great if you could remember everything about art and creativity from revising a text book but its simply not the case. Im unsure how else you could study for art. Afterall art is a lot about expression and feeling, not something you program into yourself. To make these courses count students have to learn to be quite independant in their thoughts. Some are not used to this concept comming straight from school or college and so can be a challenge (I sure wasnt!).

You build you own fort which is what these courses are all about, I really dont think you can control the experience as lectures. At the end of the day its about the students utilising other peoples brains when needed.