College ain't cheap. And if college bores you, or wastes your time, it's adding injury to the insult of loading you up with debt. So if you're going to go to school, why not look for schools that prepare you for the world you're going to inhabit when you get out, not some broken down version of 1970? Popular Mechanics has a list of ten University programs that will get you that Will Hunting offer right out of the gate. Here's an example of one I'd like to go to; and if I wasn't already poorly educated and loaded up with debt, I might:
GAMING THE SYSTEM
Game Culture and Technology
University of California, Irvine
Computer and video gaming these days is analogous to cinema in the 1920s--a growing industry thriving on new technology and starving for creative talent. UC Irvine's interdisciplinary program looks beyond the basic skills provided by courses in programming and computer graphics. World Building, for example, teaches students how to "produce works that project themselves as fully realized alternate realities." Projects include a multimodal role-playing game that integrates 3D graphics with the Internet and location-aware cellphones, as well as a Web-based game that will interact with a $5.5 million dinosaur exhibit at Discovery Science Center in Santa Ana, Calif. "Imagine a movie tie-in game for a blockbuster," is how recent graduate Alex Szeto describes it. "Except the game doesn't stink."
Note to prospective college attendees: If you get a bad education, the game of life will stink every day of your working life. If your parents are going to make a bonfire of twenty dollar bills for you, why not make it worth everybody's while?
Read the whole list here.
