My last year of high school is finally coming to an end which also means that I am also getting ready for what I am going to do after high school. I have talked quite a bit about college in the past and what I am interested in, but I never actually told you all where I decided I was going to college. Turns out I will be attending NC State University this Fall with the intent of pursuing a Computer Science degree in the College of Engineering. I was pleasantly surprised to find the acceptance email for NC State in my inbox. I never expected to get into NC State let alone the College of Engineering due to how competitive it is to get into both. I decided a while back that I enjoyed coding (pretty sure I have a blog post about that somewhere) which has changed my college application process to focus mainly on computer science. You can see in my project that after a while I mainly focused on coding. Once I started to do that, I was having more fun with my project since I was able to explore my interest more and I was always happy when I accomplished a rather difficult task. That's about all I have to say about what I am going to be doing next year. Wish me luck!
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Today, I was able to take the day off of school and go visit a college of my choosing, which was East Carolina University. ECU is my safety school since the academic requirements are nothing compared to what I have right now, which will give me a high chance to get in. Anyway, if you have forgotten, I am looking for a degree in computer science since I am into the whole programming thing, yet I am still unsure as to what I want to do with that degree. Obviously working for a game studio would be great, but there are a lot of other job fields that would accept a computer science degree that I may be interested in. Back to ECU, I was able to get a general tour of the campus, but I was unable to get a closer look at their science and technology building, the dormitories, and their food halls. The campus looked nice and like somewhere I wouldn't mind living. I would rather live and go to a larger college than a smaller one since there are more things to do and people to see. If I don't get into the other colleges that I am applying to, I could see myself attending ECU without regrets.
So, my family and I have just returned from our small vacation to Wilmington in order to just get away from the house for a while and enjoy the coast. While I was there, I was able to schedule a college tour and I was able to take a look at a more traditional college setting than VCU which kind of blended in with the city. The campus itself was pretty nice and it wasn't too large or small for my liking and all of the campus buildings were within walking distance of each other. I would need to get a car if I was to live here though since the campus isn't incorporated into a city where I could walk to the grocery store if I needed to. The class sizes were generally the same size as the ones I currently have at DSA, about 20-30 students, however there were some cases where there were large auditorium style classes for the basic classes and some cases where there were only 10 students in the upper level classes. I was mainly interested in the computer science major that they offered there as I stated back in a previous post about shifting my attention towards computer science. Luckily, I was able to get a hold of one of the computer science professors after the tour to go over what they offered and how the class is structured among other things. The talk I had with him was great for reaffirming my choice of pursuing computer science since they also had a digital art major coming up when I start looking to enroll and he explained what that major entailed. I told him that I am a lot more interested in the programming side of video games rather than the art since I don't find my art skills to be all too great and he told me that I should definitely look into computer science more for a major if that is what I am interested in. Despite being tired afterwards, I found the college tour helpful in broadening my choices for colleges that I will apply for when the time comes later this year.
After going through a lot of stuff within Unity and with programming, I have realized that I don't think going to VCU would be a great idea. Although I do enjoy creating artwork in 3D and 2D, I don't think I would have nearly as much fun when it comes to programming. Even thinking ahead to my future career choices, I think I would enjoy working as a programmer more than an animator. Programming has clicked a lot more quickly and easily than working in digital art softwares. Not to mention that my mom also agrees that she hasn't found me to be an artistic person who enjoys drawing as a hobby and believes in my thinking that I would enjoy learning how to code at a professional level. So from now on, I think I will be looking more into a computer science degree when I am searching for potential colleges that I will be applying to in the near future.
So, I have just finished my college visit to VCU a few hours ago and I found the campus to be very nice. The school of the arts had some amazing art pieces to look at and the Kinetic Imaging department had some nice equipment available and art examples as well. I liked the urban setting of the campus since most of the things that I might need are within walking distance of each other. The food in the city is really good since there are a lot of local chains in the city that I wouldn't be able to find back in North Carolina. The most important thing that I got out of this college trip was that if I do want to pursue anything related to art in game design, I am going to need to get a whole lot better at making art. I have been slacking when it comes to creating art outside of class and getting better at it and my current portfolio wouldn't be enough to get into VCU. Over the rest of the year, I am going to need to start improving both my 2D and 3D art skills so that if I do look into the art portion of game design, I have a portfolio that I can use and I wont be starting from zero when I get into the class.
On Saturday, my mom and I will be driving up to Richmond, Virginia in order to take a look at Virginia Commonwealth University. This school primarily interested me with its course in Kinetic Imaging, which is basically working with sound, video, and animation. This would be an alternative path of study from the one I would want to do, which is programming as I mentioned in a previous blog post. The reason that I would be willing to do this over programming would be because it is another part of the game industry that I am interested in, albeit not as much. Also, programming can be self taught, so if I do go to VCU for Kinetic Imaging, I can teach myself programming in order to develop my own game if I wanted to. Anyway, this will be my first college visit to a school that I might go to in the near future, so I am excited to see what the school has for a campus.
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AuthorMy name is Timothy Czerniejewski and this is my blog for my Game Art Design interests. Archives
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