The Art Institute of San Diego Game Design Program?

I am looking to find more information on the credibility of this school. Is this more of a real university or is it one of those ITT Tech kind of schools? Are there any game designers on here that can give me the names of schools they attended, or good schools to attend? Should I just get a degree in computer science/programing and then try to work my way into the gaming industry? I really just don't want to spend the money at the Art Institute, graduate and then have a degree (if it is considered a degree) in game design that the gaming industry considers useless, or below par.|||I attended AI: San Diego for awhile, it is an excellent school. They have a lot of teachers that have worked in the industry and good relationships with several game studios in the area. There are even a few classes where you get to present your project to people from Sony Online Entertainment. The nice thing about AI is that you get very career-focused and hands-on classes, not a lot of classes that aren't related to your degree, and not a lot of long lectures.





You should be aware though, that the Game Art and Design degree is VERY art-focused, it's mostly about 3D modeling, and this is where the majority of the students get their jobs (50-75%). If this is what you are interested in, great. If you're more interested in game design (which was my case), this probably isn't the program for you.





They also have a game programming degree, but they just started offering it so I wouldn't recommend it as it's fairly untested. It has a lot of 3D modeling involved as well.





I wouldn't worry about the degree being considered useless though. Here's what one of my industry contacts said about game-specific degrees:





"Throughout my career, I've interviewed many programmer candidates from both game schools as well as traditional colleges/universities. I've never found any significant correlation between candidate quality/longevity and whether their school was game-specific or not."





Good luck with whatever you chose to do. I hope you find the school that's right for you!