w00t I totally graduated!

[SteveThaiBinh]

Congratulations.

[Gfted1]

Yeah some of my credits wont transfer to my new school and I'm too much of a vajayjay to take more than 4 classes at a time. But I think I'm going to change that.

 

What the hell is a 'vajayjay? Or is it onomatopoeic?

 

 

Its slang for a womans woo woo. So, he's basically calling himself a pussycat (minus the cat) for not being able to take more then 4 classes at a time.

[Walsingham]

I see....

[taks]

I may have a chance to do a PhD, or masters, but currently I'm focused on getting myself a job, in the games industry, get a bit more experience under my belt.

i would HIGHLY recommend an MS, but a PhD is a bit of a different story. the MS says to potential employers "this guy is willing to work hard and he's proved the ability to tackle difficult problems" which makes you very marketable, while still maintaining a bit of a broad scope. the PhD, however, is a mixed bag. it says the same thing (to a greater level, obviously), but it also has a tendency to pigeon-hole you into niche areas which may limit opportunities (depends upon a lot of factors, however).

 

the PhD as well is monumentally more difficult in some ways. from a classwork standpoint, it's no different than an MS - just more classes. the hardest parts are 1) picking a dissertation topic, 2) getting a higher score on the qualifier exam than an MS qualifier (which requires, oddly enough, rather broad knowledge) 3) maintaining a higher GPA (often easy since classwork is more focused into your area of interest) and 4) actually writing the dissertation. #s 1 and 4 are the big meat. #4 is the reason i'm on daily zoloft and twice a day prilosec (coupled with what a friend referred to as "the perfect storm of stress" in the past 6 months). the problem with #1 is that as you begin to research, you quickly discover that other people have already done "it," which means you have to adjust your topic. this is an eternal hell while you're writing, too, since you always have the fear of starting over and losing everything you've done. i had two close calls while doing unrelated patent searches that almost scrapped everything. not fun.

 

anyway, hope that helps. if you need any other thoughts, let me know. did 'em both, while working full time to boot.

 

taks

[~Di]

Mega-congrats! This is huge! You've worked very, very hard for a long time to achieve this. I'm proud of you! *hugs*

[@\NightandtheShape/@]

I may have a chance to do a PhD, or masters, but currently I'm focused on getting myself a job, in the games industry, get a bit more experience under my belt.

i would HIGHLY recommend an MS, but a PhD is a bit of a different story. the MS says to potential employers "this guy is willing to work hard and he's proved the ability to tackle difficult problems" which makes you very marketable, while still maintaining a bit of a broad scope. the PhD, however, is a mixed bag. it says the same thing (to a greater level, obviously), but it also has a tendency to pigeon-hole you into niche areas which may limit opportunities (depends upon a lot of factors, however).

 

the PhD as well is monumentally more difficult in some ways. from a classwork standpoint, it's no different than an MS - just more classes. the hardest parts are 1) picking a dissertation topic, 2) getting a higher score on the qualifier exam than an MS qualifier (which requires, oddly enough, rather broad knowledge) 3) maintaining a higher GPA (often easy since classwork is more focused into your area of interest) and 4) actually writing the dissertation. #s 1 and 4 are the big meat. #4 is the reason i'm on daily zoloft and twice a day prilosec (coupled with what a friend referred to as "the perfect storm of stress" in the past 6 months). the problem with #1 is that as you begin to research, you quickly discover that other people have already done "it," which means you have to adjust your topic. this is an eternal hell while you're writing, too, since you always have the fear of starting over and losing everything you've done. i had two close calls while doing unrelated patent searches that almost scrapped everything. not fun.

 

anyway, hope that helps. if you need any other thoughts, let me know. did 'em both, while working full time to boot.

 

taks

 

Thanks for the advice . It's not likely that I will do a masters, or a PhD, it was merely that I have been approched about the topic and I'm always open.

 

Also I've already done one dissertation at 132 pages in length, on procedural tree generation using L-Systems, with data recorded in terms of geometry shaders based generation and CPU based generation. I don't think another one would really strike any fear into me, it's the kind of thing I'm rather good at opposed to say exam's where in general I suck.

 

I've only ever been interested in programming games, and I intend to continue in that direction for now, I still have some distance to cover on more advanced C++ techniques, and the STL. I just need more practical experience.

[Walsingham]

Didn't Chris Avellone go through how to become a programmer in The Amazing Fallout Bibles? I rather think he did, and it was in issue five...

[taks]

Also I've already done one dissertation at 132 pages in length, on procedural tree generation using L-Systems, with data recorded in terms of geometry shaders based generation and CPU based generation. I don't think another one would really strike any fear into me, it's the kind of thing I'm rather good at opposed to say exam's where in general I suck.

the hard part of a phd dissertation is that you have to "advance the theory" in some meaningful way. what that means for each field of research, however, is fairly arbitrary. my MS thesis was very high on analysis of existing tools (though i did write a lot of software to do the analysis), but no real invention to speak of. my dissertation OTOH, was two separate "inventions," plus all the requisite analysis and software required to do said analysis. one of the inventions actually has real practical use, and an adaptation i'm using at the office will be submitted for a patent at some point. the other piece is... meh.

 

writing didn't really bug me, either. i pulled off about 110 pages in 2 weeks or so. of course, i probably wrote 500 pages of reports and documentation over the course of the last year between work and school. that's never been an issue... so when i said "actually writing the dissertation" i was more referring to generating the material itself, not really the physical task of putting pen to paper.

 

taks

Edited June 23, 2008 by taks

[@\NightandtheShape/@]

Ah got ya... Like I said it's only a possible chance, and I'm genuinely not keen on the idea.

[Walsingham]

Not everyone can write that fast, taks . I write about 30 pages a day and I'm told my typing sounds like a war between armies of mice.