Hiatus from blogging..

I have not been blogging for a while, and that's cause I have recently gone back to school.

I took up an offer from WDA for skills retraining under their PCP (Professional Conversion Program).

So now I am studying Game Programming at DigiPen Singapore, which I am utterly enjoying.

It makes the process of getting my bachelor in IT feel like kindergarten.

For example, last week we did reflection (e.g. a mirror) and planar shadows. This week we did a pinball simulation (with multiple balls bouncing on each other). Next week, we will be switching to OpenGL 3.3 and writing our own shaders. Yes, it is extremely fast paced.

Thus, I am taking a hiatus from blogging for a "while"... :D

My trip to ERC Institute

Saw an advertisement in Today a few days back on how to learn to make your own game.

It was by ERC Institute, a private school that does both full-time and part-time diploma level courses in a range of subjects.

So yesterday, I went down for a preview of their course.
The place is located just next to Great World City and I was able to take a bus, SBS 195 from Tioung Bahru MRT to reach it.



They conduct two gaming related courses Diploma in Game Design & Development and Advanced Diploma in Game Design & Development (each lasting 12-15 months and costing S$10K), and these lead to a Degree offered University of Greenwich in UK.

They had two presenters. The first was Bryan, from a prospective hirer of graduates, Crystal CG whose main office in China did the CG for the Beijing 2008 Olympics. The second was from ERC and explain what their course offered. I was really impressed when they mentioned having a lot of industry contacts, guest lecturers and internships available. Before leaving, I asked to see some of the completed projects that their students have done, to get a better idea of what you can do after completing their course, so waiting for them to get back to me.

The course entry requirements are GCE 'O' Levels, and I would probably have enrolled it if that was my highest education level. However, this course is probably not suited for me as I have already done a degree.



There is another school for gaming in Singapore, Digipen which I plan to attend their upcoming information session (May 22, Friday). From what I hear, they are a lot more expensive but they offer Bachelor Degrees.