What's a good Bachelor degree to get into the LD guildhall?

[JRolls89]

Hi there. I'm currently enrolled at a community college getting basics out of the way. I do plan on attending SMU later on to recieve a Master's in LD once I get my Bachelor's. Now, I've talk to some of the counselor's on what they recommend I get is a Bachelor's in either Liberal Arts or Architecture. However, I would like to consider all my options so what other Bachelor degree programs out there do yall recommend and please give me details as to why it could help. Thanks a bunch

[Verbinator]

The best undegrad degree for Level Design is the one that engages your interest, plays to your personal strengths and emphasizes and eclectic interest and passion for learning about the world. The elective choices you make may have a stronger contribution to your success as an LD. Go for art, architecture, and entry level programming courses. Psychology to understand your players. History overviews to understand the world they live in. Go ahead and get some grounding in 3D development tools like Maya, Max and Photoshop. Feel free to take some game design and development courses.

The goal is to come away from your undergrad experience with an eclectic variety of experience, an ability to communicate in writing and verbally, and the ability to observe and understand the world around you and how it might translate into gameplay settings.

[Dragon]

I felt my marketing education has just as much influence, if not more, than my Guildhall education when working on projects primarily due to thought process and work flow. This is likely a common occurrence in other majors as well. There's no one major for level design that would prove better than the rest.

[feilong80]

That's an interesting question. I was a music performance major myself (jazz guitar). I'm not the only performance major to go to Guildhall as a level designer either, so there must be something to it other than the fact that making a living in music is really hard! I think in my case understanding rhythm and flow in music helps me to the same in a game level.

I think Paul is right with his comments, though. It is hard to think of a legit vocation that doesn't in some way give input to a future game or level design. One thing to thing about, in my opinion, if your ability to plan and finish creative projects. One of the benefits of my musical career is that I planned, composed the music for, and recorded several albums (search "Rob Howard" or "Paragon" at cdbaby.com). While not at all like making a game, the ability to see something like that through is similar to executing a game level. You plan, scope, produce, and then think about what went right and wrong, and hopefully apply those lessons to another project.

[dogeroodave]

The elective choices you may make may have a stronger contribution to your success as an LD. Go for GD, HOA, and advanced programming courses. The event ended on Tuesday, October 13, 2009 at the Shanghai International Convention Center. According to organizers, it brought together over 900 conference, media, and speaking attendees and over 2,000 expo attendees. GDC China 2009 -- part of Think Services, as is this website -- ... It is hard to think of a legit vocation that doesn't in some way give input to a future game or level design. One thing to thing about, IMO, if your ability to plan and finish creative projects.

[Gracks]

I majored in philosophy in college, and it's a bit of a stretch for me to make the field relevant to level design, but I'm going to do it anyway:

Philosophy mostly consists of people stringing together complicated, poorly-defined words into incomprehensible sentences and incoherent arguments. By going through a philosophy degree, you have the opportunity to hone your logic organ for detecting bad ideas and arguments, since you are assaulted with a constant stream of bullshit. This has helped me in level design and game design because, like all fields (and especially philosophy), most ideas are bad.

The cesspool of non-meaning that was undergraduate philosophy has helped make me more honest with myself and others about which ideas are bad, and why. The most productive use I currently make of this is filtering out my bad level/game design ideas, with a combination of objective self-criticism and external playtesting (aka objective external criticism).

To answer your question more directly: study something you care lots about.