Last year I posted about Winter Quarter courses I was about to take and stated that I would explain my consideration to switch majors. A year later, I’ll now explain my thought process and where I am today. I hope to also discuss the classes I took during this quarter and the work and projects completed during this time.

Computer Game Development vs. Computer Science

The future is scary. Who knows what it holds? So why not try to make it as concrete as possible for yourself and choose a path that will most likely lead to whatever it is you desire? That was my thinking when I was considering switching from Computer Game Development to Computer Science.

If one were to evaluate a Computer Game Development degree just by its name, it would be reasonable to assume that the end goal is to just make video games. In fact, that was one of my fears when I was thinking about switching to CS. Working alongside engineers that have degrees in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, and more at my internship with a local engineering consulting company, I felt that their degrees would be considered more thoroughly than mine would.

Shortly after, I started researching what it would take to switch my course plan from game dev to CS. Unfortunately, because I had taken so many major courses already, I wouldn’t have been able to complete my degree in the same time frame. I was bummed – what was I going to do now? I’m stuck.

As I entered my second quarter of my Junior year, I was enrolled in CSC 395 – Research Colloquium. As I described in an earlier post, it’s a course where every week a new speaker presents their research to the class. Going in, I hadn’t realized how influential this course would be to me. Not once was I disinterested in a topic, no matter how difficult it was to grasp or how I couldn’t understand the title. The presentation of these ideas interested me and motivated me to start thinking about graduate school.

That leads me to where I am today. I am still pursuing a degree in Computer Game Development, but I no longer feel like Computer Science or any other degree would be more worthwhile. I’m not pigeonholed into just making video games. Still at the same internship, I’ve been able to work on a lot of cool projects and get a good taste of the professional world. But I am still compelled by the idea of academia. Therefore, I am applying to graduate schools for Master’s programs in Computer Science.

This has been in my drafts for a few days now. So I guess I’ll post this and give each course a separate post in the coming days.