Hey all, just thinking about my future if I make it to Mac, but what kind of jobs will this program prepare me for? CareerCruising hasn't really been specific so i'd love to hear from actual students/graduates/etc!

Originally Posted by rick

Hey all, just thinking about my future if I make it to Mac, but what kind of jobs will this program prepare me for? CareerCruising hasn't really been specific so i'd love to hear from actual students/graduates/etc!

Well obviously a game designer. There have been companies that have come in(Bathesta for example was here last year) and they recruit.

Another thing to keep in mind is the fact that software engineering is based on A LOT of math. So you can go to the research side, there are a lot of opportunities there(I know, I'm in software/math research).

If you want to go into logic design, you can(ie. designing processors) -- there are courses that prepare you for that.

There's also that embedded stream I don't know much about, but I assume you get to do some low level programming etc. if that's your thing.

Anything to do with anything is run by computers nowdays, and a software engineer is always needed to design a better and slimmer system, so you can basically get into any field.

Any questions?

Thanks for the quick reply! So it gets you to game design, huh? That's just what I was hoping to hear.

But do I absolutely have to be good at math? I can do well enough to get by but the way you put the focus of math in this major makes it sound kinda intimidating :[

Nice to hear that a big company like Bethesda visited Mac though, they've always been near the top in the video game industry.

Originally Posted by rick

Thanks for the quick reply! So it gets you to game design, huh? That's just what I was hoping to hear.

But do I absolutely have to be good at math? I can do well enough to get by but the way you put the focus of math in this major makes it sound kinda intimidating :[

Nice to hear that a big company like Bethesda visited Mac though, they've always been near the top in the video game industry.

Well, the math doesn't go away unfortunately. The thing is that this is Software ENGINEERING. That means that you will be designing stuff(think about if a civil engineer didnt know his math when he was designing a building - he needs to calculate stress, angles, margins of error, failsafes, etc.). Now if you want to be a games designer your whole life but you don't like math, I suggest taking something that's not software engineering, like computer science(they take some of the same-mathy- courses as engineers, but nopt as much I don't think)or go to a college for computer design.

Why do I say this - when Bathesta came, what do you think they listed as some of the requirements of a good candidate: do well in the math-based courses(they didnt put it exactly like this, but it was there). Why? Because as I found out(as well), a lot of software engineering is mathematics-based.

Now don't get scared off -- it's done gradually, and all the math is related back to software engineering(in fact some of the courses are all math and still called software eng.). I found them actually fun, although a fair bit of work. If I were you, I would try 2nd year of Software eng. to see how it goes(DO ALL YOUR WORK) and if you're not satisfied(too much work, or average too low), then transfer down to comp sci or a college. But I think it's totally doable.

One more thing: there is actually a game design stream of software engineering you can apply to when 1st year is over. You probably want that. There are some *fun*(ie. multimedia based) courses in it that deal with game design(you take most other software eng courses too though).

Tell me what you think, if you have any questions.

a bit of misinformation on my part(my memory is going lol): it wasn't Bathesta it was Bedlam
Particularly sad since I was there at the presentation

This all sounds very interesting, I think i'll have to see how I do in my first semester of grade 12 (currently have adv func, next sem is calc) and see if software engineering could be my thing.

Thanks for the amount of detail you put into explaining it to me, sounds like the course could be a lot of fun!