Computer Games Technology BSc: Abertay vs West of Scotland

Hi guys!

I'm planning to apply for a 2013/2014 course in Computer Games Technology in Scotland. Unfortunately, I'm not Scottish, so I don't know anything about Unis 'reputation.

I read that both the Abertay of Dundee Uni and West of Scotland Uni have very good courses about that subject, but I don't know which one is the best and which Uni really offers something more than the other one.

I am going to take a tour into these Unis during July, but I would like to hear the opinion of someone more expert than me before to take a decision.
So what are your opinions, experiences and thoughts about these 2 universities? What would you suggest me to do?

Thank you! :smile:

Reply 1

erinEM

Hi there,

I am just finishing my degree from Abertay so I can't speak to the merits of West of Scotland Uni, but I have to say I've really enjoyed my course. The biggest thing for me was the fact that you got to make games for almost every hand-in and were actually making games for real consoles like the ps3 or xna games. In third year, we were partnered up mentors from industry for our group projects, so my friends got to work with Disney and I worked on a group project that we presented to Sony. Also, I did Dare to be Digital (which is held at Abertay every summer) after my third year, and I did a summer research internship through Abertay after my second year.

I'm not from Scotland either, and the fact that Abertay has skillset accreditation for the Computer Game Technology course and that so many of the lecturers worked in the games industry were big factors for me.

Hope that helps

Reply 2

Snowzurfer

Original post by erinEM

Thank you very much, I appreciate your answer. I'm glad to hear that this kind of study brings yourself to face the big companies :smile:

Reply 3

akademos

Horses for courses. I wrote the Abertay games and arts degree programmes before we parted company. The games courses are technically excellent but not the same as the UWS degrees. For example, in the Games Technology degrees UAD does PC and PS2/PSP whilst UWS does PC and PS3; both do C++. In the Games Development degrees the UAD emphasis is upon general mobile dev whereas the UWS one is micro-enterprise/new-start studio orientated. We are currently redirecting the Game Dev course towards MS W8 devices (PC, Surface, Lumia.) If you wanted to do Apple I am afraid nobody does much as Apple don't really help the unis.

Best advice: go to see each of them and see what you think. Both UWS and UAD Game Tech degrees are Skillset accredited. The UAD Games Dev is individually Skillset accredited and the UWS one is Skillset Academy accredited.

Hope this helps. Dr John N Sutherland.

Reply 4

Snowzurfer

Original post by akademos

Best advice: go to see each of them and see what you think. Both UWS and UAD Game Tech degrees are Skillset accredited. The UAD Games Dev is individually Skillset accredited and the UWS one is Skillset Academy accredited.

First of all, thank you for your extensive answer :smile:

.

What do you exactly mean with the sentence I quoted? I mean, what's the difference between an "individually skillset accredited course" and an "academy accredited" one?

Reply 5

akademos

There are a limited range of specific degrees that Skillset accredit. For example in games there is accreditation for an undergraduate graphics programming degree but not for a design degree. At postgraduate level there is far more flexibility as the course is much shorter, so you could in theory find a MSc in Games Design skillset-accredited but you wouldn't get one at BSc/BA level.

So, the games programming degrees that are individually accredited are all of the C++/Maths/Graphics/Physics variety. Ones like Newport had in Games & AI which taught this stuff using Java could not be accredited, even thought the contents were much the same as UWS and Abertay's Comp Game Tech degrees.

The alternative approach is to bundle together a related range of degrees and ask to be accredited as a Skillset Academy. This took UWS 3 years to achieve and covers Journalism, Media Studies, Art, Animation, Games, etc. Each degree is considered individually as to whether it fits into the general criteria of a useful degree for the creative industries sector.

I'm not sure my Comp Game Dev degree will ever get beyond this as our aim is now to orientate it to MS C# and Languages, producing a creative graduate who can create games and apps across all W8 platforms (PC, fon, Internet, tablet) with added strengths in a range of European and Asiatic languages.