Vega Pretoria: Game Design and Development

I am sad to say that after 3 years at Vega Pretoria, studying Game Design and Development, I highly recommend against studying there for a variety of reasons.

The curriculum is often either long outdated or completely irrelevant to the degree. The fees are exorbitantly high, apparently to cover a suite of software that we either never actually used, or simply did not work well/at all on the campus computers. By 3rd year, students were entirely using free or self-licensed software, but still paying these arbitrarily inflated fees. All in all, the course is simply not worth the money.

At times we went weeks without lecturers, at a stage even cycling through new lecturers every semester, as many were not qualified to teach the material or did not even try to do so. We have been left in classes to watch YouTube videos for hours at a time by AWOL lecturers, expected to self-learn very important topics and teach it to fellow students in order to help everyone pass. We have also gone weeks to months, on multiple occasions, without replies to emails asking for help with missing or incorrect project marks.

I did at least enjoy some of my time at Vega, mainly thanks to a handful of lecturers who were actually equipped to prepare students for their future careers, going the extra mile in maintaining the students' passions for their work. However, the work of these few and far between people often felt drowned out by the other lecturers and admin staff, who actively hindered students' capabilities and potential through their apathy.

Please, at least until the curriculum and lecturer problems are solved, consider studying somewhere other than Vega. I have heard good things about the Game Design and Development courses at Open Window and WITS, so maybe look into those for the time being.