Colleges

There are many different colleges with different programs for me to choose from. The main things I'm looking at for each college are locations, the programs, the length of the programs, and the tuition. The programs I'm interested in are anything to do with video game development like digital graphics. Because tuition prices are so incredibly high in America I've made a list of colleges in other countries like Germany and Denmark.

Let's start with Denmark. One of the colleges I saw in Denmark had a rather long name called The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts. It had a program titled Game Art, Design, and Development. The program lasts 2 years and is 6168$ per semester. Another university was titled IT University of Copenhagen. The university had a program simply titled Games that also lasts only 2 years that was 7514$ per semester. I wanted to find programs that lasted longer because I assumed that would mean they had more to teach and would treat it more seriously so I kept looking and found some programs for a college called VIA University College. I would reconsider these colleges only if I found out more about the programs they offered that made me excited or if they created new courses or lengthened the existing ones.

Denmark also has a college called VIA University College with 2 game programs. The 2 programs are Character Animation and Computer Graphic Arts. Both programs last for 3 and a half years and cost 7943$ per semester. If I did end up going to this college I would have to look at both programs more extensively in order to make a choice between them, because even though the price is comparatively low, 7 years would be a long time. I guess if I did end up taking both programs then I would want to get an actual job while I was there in the video game field, that way I could continue studying and still be doing what I want to do.

Next lets look at Universities in Germany. I'm looking at Germany because not only would it be really cool to live there and meet the people and the culture, but also because the tuition prices are not even a fraction of what you have to pay in America. First is the University of Applied Sciences Darmstadt. The University offers a course in Animation and Game that lasts 3.5 years and has an unbelievable 0$ tuition. Similar to it is the University of Applied Sciences Cologne. It has a program named Digital Games for 3.5 years that is only 249$ per semester. The third college I saw was called Berlin School of Applied Sciences. The program is called Game Design and lasts 3.5 years. A downside as well as an upside is that even though there is a 0$ tuition fee they are only accepting 40 applicants per year. All I can say about that is that hopefully it is a very high class course with a lot to offer, otherwise I might not have a large chance of getting in unless I'd already gotten some training in the area.

While I was looking at colleges in Germany I found one in particular that interested me called the Technical University of Munich. They offered a course called games engineering and what had drawn me so much to it is that the description of the course and the pictures that went along with it was exactly what I had wanted in a college course. The course is very broad in that it isn't confining these games to a single platform like computer gaming or mobile gaming it's looking at all types of games across all platforms, even virtual reality. It also showed that it's a perfect blend of teaching how to create the 2D and 3D art styles of video games and the actual development and coding of them. The course also has a Bachelors as well as a Masters degree available making it last a total of 5 years which is the longest amount of time I've seen for any single program so far. Last but not least all of this comes in at only 127$ per semester which is just incredible.

It's obvious that there are some pretty great colleges in both Denmark and Germany. My two favorite options are still the VIA University College in Denmark and the Technical University of Munich in Germany. The field is still growing so I'm sure that there are going to be more and more opportunities in these countries as well as others and I plan to keep looking at different programs and colleges especially internationally because of the low tuition and amazing experiences I can have there.


- By Ashton