DigiPen Institute of Technology - Redmond, Washington

Scott M.

Updating my original review from 3 years ago (see below). My son just completed his first year here and he loved it! Rigorous, challenging and he had lots of fun. The staff both is amazingly helpful and they really do great things here. He had a great first year.

If you are a freshman sign up for the early arrival program! Its great and my son made great friends there and was able to move into self living before the craziness of school started.

I even had a bumper sticker made see my photos LOL

——- original review Summer 2019 ———

Fantastic staff and facilities. My son will be attending here soon and has been taking part in the summer sessions on game programming and design.

John K.

Excellent, rigorous, intense, serious yet fun college degree programs in computer game industry/development, computer science, graphic arts, sound design & game music, etc. Great faculty, administration, cafeteria, summer programs, school spirit 👍 🎮😄

Zachary K.

This school will offer you the best education if you are committed to that education. Lots of people that go here are not ready for it, if you just want to play games, this school is not for you. If you just want to talk about games, this school is not for you. If you're not ready to take yourself seriously and do more work than you've ever done, this school is not for you. But when you are ready, this school is the best place to go. I'm studying computer science and game design, i think going here was the best decision i ever made for myself

Nick F.

I'm giving 4 stars because DigiPen is an incredible school, but it can be very unforgiving. I attended from August 2015 to October 2015, and do kind of regret it. The experience was incredible and surreal, going to a school like itself. It's a good school with a great learning community if you are very, VERY committed and into it. I went in wholeheartedly believing I could push myself to excel, but I quickly learned that (in my case) staying would be a very bad idea. I'm not an artist, and I suck at math.

The half-semester experience left me $20,000 in debt, which I might have paid off by the end of next year. Also, if you owe the school money, the minimum payment is $500 a month. Keep this in mind: this is the real world, and if you have any doubts about this school, do not attend unless you have enough money to come out unscathed should you decide to leave. If you graduate (or complete most of your degree), you will be WELL over $100,000 in debt. Also, should you need to finish at another school, keep in mind that no classes will transfer at all. This is a highly specialized curriculum. Lastly, if you suffer from homesickness or don't hate where you live now, the move will take a toll on you. I moved from South Carolina, and it was very difficult after the first month.

If you 100% believe that you can handle this school, and know for a fact game design/art and animation is what you want to do with your life, then go for it. Keep everything I've said in mind, and PLEASE talk to DigiPen students before you enroll. Ask them about the workload and the difficulty. Check out their assignments if possible, and be sure to go in with full understand that you will be pushed to your limits.

gogniben

Excellent education. The professors have worked or currently work in the gaming industry. The courses are very challenging and the game projects require a high degree of teamwork and subject mastery to complete.

One caveat, you are going to pay more than a public school to learn programming. That being said, Digipen can give you the skills and contacts you need to break into the video game industry.

Rainbow G.

I've had Amazing Experiences taking DigiPens Coding Courses. This is My Favorite Technology Institute of All Time. Thank you and God Bless.

Ryn W.

DigiPen really only works for people with a very specific kind of disposition. If you struggle with depression or don't have an extremely high tolerance for stress, don't even think of applying. Not everyone can learn in a stressful environment and DigiPen has zero ability to accommodate different learning needs, nor really any interest in doing so. They pride themselves on the fact that 2/3 of their students drop out and that many "discover that they have no real love" for the subject they went there to study. That's bullshit. What actually happens is they destroy those students' self-esteem.

To be clear, I did graduate with my BFA, but I left feeling my skills were unemployable after spending 90% of my time forced to work in every area except the one I wanted to specialize in (animation). I know for a fact that I came out with worse drawing skills than I went in with, mainly because it just wasn't taught in a way that I could internalize.

They made a big deal when I visited the campus about artists and programmers working together; that a programmer could just walk down the hall to an art classroom and say they needed "x" for their project and an artist could volunteer to help them extra-curricularly. Actually it turned out that doing so was very vehemently discouraged by the teachers, as it would take away from the time you needed to spend on your own homework. So really you were only supposed to work with programmers if you decided to do a game project for your capstone project in your senior year (which less than a third of the artists did). The reality, though, was that it was the students that did extra-curricular game projects from the first year who typically ended up in the best position for success, because they had made connections and knew how to work with the programmers..

Falling through the cracks was incredibly easy, especially if you have problems with socialization. Despite spending years with the same small group of people, I was unable to make any friends within my program, which made partnering for projects difficult. The instructor support for this was virtually non-existent.

Support for artists who wanted to work in the game industry was also lacking, mainly because the school really just wants their artists to produce pretty videos that they can show off on the TV screens in the lobbies and artwork that they can use as marketing materials.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention, DigiPen owns everything you make in your classes.

I've talked to quite a few former DigiPen students since graduating, and I've found far more who were unhappy with the experience than those who were happy. I left with a mountain of debt and a useless degree, and unless you excel under pressure, are socially assertive, and have no learning disabilities, you can probably expect the same.

Copper W.

If you're an international student and considering DigiPen, please don't. The tuition is insanely expensive, and there are very few classes opened, unlike it's seen in course catalog. There are many other universities in US that has better curriculum and less expensive tuition. And faculty doesn't have any interest to what international students are suffering, for example CPT work permit issue. They're only interested how to rip off money as much as possible from international students.