• Full Sail College founded in 1979
• Premiere music, entertainment and media arts university
• Full Sail is located in Orlando, FL
• Full Sail College is accredited by the Accrediting Commission of Career Schools and Colleges of Technology
• Full Sail College is recognized for innovative programs by Rolling Stone, Shift Magazine, Electronic Gaming Monthly
• Named “School/College of the Year” by the Florida Association of Post-secondary Schools & Colleges

Full Sail College began 30 years ago and has garnered a reputation as one of the premier media arts schools in the world. Full Sail College offers many degree programs if you want to pursue a career in music, film, video games, design, animation and entertainment business. Throughout the entertainment industry. Full Sail College is located in Orlando, Florida. The school serves more than 6,000 students from all over the world and students come to the U.S. campus from many countries such as Brazil, Kenya, Canada, Japan and India. Full Sail graduates have found rewarding careers in film, acclaimed video games and design projects, live productions and many more exciting positions in the entertainment industry.

Full Sail College Online Degree Programs

Students can choose from 13 Master’s, Bachelor’s and Associate’s degrees through Full Sail’s campus and online programs. Full Sail offers degrees in Computer Animation, Digital Arts and Design, Game Art, Game Development, Web Design and many others. Full Sail College Online will help students build a portfolio to help them launch their career. Students can enroll in courses anytime and a typical degree takes less than 2 years to complete.

If you’re interested in creating video games for a living, Full Sail can get you started with innovative courses. Many Full Sail graduates have gone on to help make some of the most popular and top selling video games such as 2007 Madden NFL 08, NASCAR 08, The Godfather, Quake IV, Call of Duty 4, Rainbow Six: Lockdown, and Tiger Woods PGA Tour ‘08. Full Sail also lets you come back and take any course within your degree for free if you need to brush up on your skills.

Full Sail College Online Tuition & Financial Aid

Depends on degree. Bachelor of Science ranges from $386 -$ 549 Master of Science ranges from $583 to $737. All books and lab fees are included in tuition.

Financial Aid available for eligible students.

Full Sail College Online Degrees

Master’s Degree

• Education Media Design & Technology
• Entertainment Business
• Internet Marketing

Bachelor Degrees

• Entertainment Business
• Internet Marketing
• Computer Animation
• Digital Arts & Design
• Education Media Design & Technology
• Internet Marketing
• Game Art
• Game Design
• Game Development
• Graphic Design & Development
• Graphic Design
• Media Design
• Web Design & Development

• Collins College Arizona was founded by Al Collins as the Graphic Design School in 1978, situated in Phoenix, Arizona
• Collins College is accredited by the Accrediting Commission of Career Schools and Colleges of Technology (ACCSCT)
• Offers both associate’s and bachelor’s degrees in media, design, or technology
• Students may choose from School of Interactive Media, School of Visual Arts and Design, or School of Film, Video and Visual FX

Collins College Arizona has three schools with detailed degree programs:

• School of Interactive Media – designed for students seeking careers in Game Design
• The School of Visual Arts & Design – designed for students seeking careers in Graphic Design, Interior Design and Game Design
• The School of Film, Video and Visual FX – designed for students seeking careers in Video Editing, Motion Graphics, Cinematography, and Film and Television Production; the new Film and Video Center gives students the opportunity to learn in an environment modeled after a professional film studio

Collins College AZ Online provides ten reasons to attend and earn your degree:

• Convenient locations
• Award winning student services department
• Career Services
• Internationally recognized film facility
• Campus WIFI access
• Tutoring
• Campus Clubs and Organizations
• Industry/Alumni speakers
• Scholarships
• Faculty

For those seeking careers in game design and development, Collins College Arizona offers game degree programs. Among the game degree programs Collins College Arizona offers are the following:

• BA in Game Design
• BA in Visual Art with Game Art Major

Collins College Arizona also offers the following related degree programs that will prove useful in a game degree career:

• AA in Graphic Design
• BA in Graphic Design

Tuition and Financial Aid

A financial plan to fit any student’s needs is available at Collins College Arizona. Financial plans at Collins College may include any of the following financial aid resources: scholarships, grants, federal loans, and work-study programs.

Creating a single game involves many people. Some are involved in writing the story behind the game; others lay out the graphics and animation based on the story. The production team is so diverse that the industry in general employs thousands across the globe.

How exactly can you break into the dynamic world of game development? You can find gaming career colleges online to acquire your gaming degree.

If you love games, you won’t find it hard to get into a gaming degree college. Then you should also be flexible enough to take on the different aspects of game design. The nature of a game designer’s work is blurry. Different companies look for different skills. The key is to play as many games as you can and read on the subject of gaming in different sources. If you know enough about gaming, there is no telling how far you can go into this wild industry

• Collins College was founded in 1978 as the Al Collins Graphic Design School in Phoenix, Arizona
• Accredited by the Accrediting Commission of Career Schools and Colleges of Technology (ACCSCT)
• Offers associate’s and bachelor’s degrees in design, media or technology
• Choose from School of Visual Arts & Design, School of Film, Video and Visual FX, or School of Interactive Media

Top 10 reasons to consider enrolling with Collins College Online:

1. Convenient locations
2. Award winning student services department
3. Career Services
4. Internationally recognized film facility
5. Campus WIFI access
6. Tutoring
7. Campus Clubs and Organizations
8. Industry/Alumni speakers
9. Scholarships

10. Faculty Collins College Online has three schools with detailed degree programs:

• The School of Visual Arts & Design - designed for students seeking careers in Graphic Design, Interior Design and Game Design
• The School of Film, Video and Visual FX – designed for students seeking careers in Video Editing, Motion Graphics, Cinematography, and Film and Television Production; the new Film & Video Center gives students the opportunity to learn in an environment modeled after a professional film studio
• School of Interactive Media – designed for students seeking careers in Game Design

Collins College Online Game Degree Programs

Collins College Online offers game degree programs for those seeking careers in game design and development. The Collins College Online game degree programs include the following:

• BA in Game Design
• BA in Visual Art with Game Art Major
• BA in Animations

Tuition and Financial Aid

Collins College prides itself on having a financial plan to fit any student’s needs. Therefore, Collins College Online offers a variety of financial aid resources, including grants, scholarships, federal loans, and work-study programs.

Here are a few facts about Westwood Online:

• Westwood Online was featured in the Top 10 online colleges according to the Online Education Database!
• Offers 17 degree programs entirely online
• Headquartered in Denver, Colorado with over 4,000 students enrolled online
• Accredited by the Accrediting Commission of Career Schools and Colleges of Technology (ACCSCT)

Westwood Online offers degrees in the following fields:

• Animation
• Game Software Development
• Game Art and Design
• Graphic Design & Multimedia
• Web Design & Multimedia
• Visual Communications
• Software Engineering

About Westwood Online Degrees

Keep in mind that Westwood Online is also  interested in your ideas for programs to be offered online, which is very unusual for colleges and universities nowadays. Westwood Online really seems to take students feedback into consideration in the development of their online programs.

Since my primary focus is Game Design & Development these days, let’s take a look at these two game degree programs.

Westwood Online Game Art and Game Design Degree

Earning a Bachelor of Science in Game Art and Design from Westwood Online will help you learn about art and animation techniques to work in the gaming software field. It includes courses in 3-D modeling and animation, Cinematography, and Color Theory. This program also provides management and general education courses.  This program is definitely for the creative student who likes to develop story lines, characters, and storyboards.

Westwood Online Game Software Development Degree

If you care more for the actual design of a game, you may want to consider earning a Bachelor of Science in Game software. Work behind the scenes in the actual programming and development of the game itself versus the creation of the characters.  This program includes developing software testing procedures, designing software systems, and creating applications to bring characters to life. This is more of the technical aspect of game design, and is constantly presenting challenges and new ways of creating games.

Westwood Online Tuition

In terms of tuition and the investment into your education and career, Westwood Online does seem competitive with many online schools out there.  The school breaks down each degree by “term”. The Game Design degree is a 193 credit degree, divided into 15 terms at $4,149 per term.  The Game Software development degree is 193.5 credits also at 15 terms at $4,149 per term. Of course, there are the additional fees as with most colleges (application, technology, enrollment, etc.), but the school does offer financial aid and will help guide you through any loan or grant process you may require.

Overall, Westwood College Online offers a very thorough program to enter the gaming industry, whether you wish to be creative in character design or engineer the software used to make those characters come to life.

If you live for video games and want to make a career out of designing the latest and greatest video games, earning a video game design degree could put you in the right direction. Pursuing a degree in this field will show you how to design video games, and help you enter the rapidly growing industry of video and PC games.

So what exactly is a video game design degree? What does it entail? A video game design degree is more than just animation and programming. It’s unique in that it focuses specifically on the video game industry. It’s a very particular degree which does mainly steer you towards the video game industry, but there are many opportunities within that field. Each college will have varying programs, but they all should include the following subjects of study:

• Software Engineering
• Graphic Design
• Animation (2-D and 3-D)
• Programming
• Game development (narrative)
• Physics (who thought you’d study physics in game development?)

Game design isn’t exactly a “piece of cake”, and there are many factors that need to be taken into consideration. For anyone who has played Guitar Hero, you may know what I’m talking about. The special film clips in the original game show “outtakes” of characters gone awry, arms detached from the guitar players, band members who just don’t look human. The courses shown above are just the tip of the iceberg, but will help you develop a strong foundation on which to build your knowledge of game development.

How to design video games… degree types

There are several types of degrees that relate to gaming and game design. Some offer a Game Software Development degree, which focuses more on the actual writing of the software, and software engineering (this actually shows you how to design video games). Then there’s a Game Art & Design degree which refers more to the actual animations, modeling 3-D objects and characters, and is the more creative path. Other majors in this field include Game Production and Game Programming. Game Production has basic foundation courses that include game programming, the business of gaming, and breaks down the production of PC Games, handheld games, and console games. Game Programming includes graphical programming, artificial intelligence, artificial life, data structures, and game engine development, just to name a few.

The field of video game design is rather large, and there are many career choices and degree options available to you. Once you find out which degree is right for you, then you can begin to find the best college with the program that suits you best… and you will be well on your way to learning how to design video games!