/digipen/ - DigiPenitentiary

This year's been a tad wilder than normal for those three topics, but since you're wondering I'll try to elaborate on some of the specifics. It turned out to be a wall of text, so I won't blame you for skimming.

On GAT 120: It's just a class with vague expectations and more essays than the typical freshman expects. You're probably hearing a couple actually valid complaints covered in a pile of whining about having to do actual work. Also, it's taught by Ellenger, which I'll explain in a bit.

GAT 210/211: These teach you how to make board games. It's a project-based class that GAT 110 & GAT 120 were designed to prepare you for. Holcomb is far from the worst teacher (I'd actually say he's pretty good). People who complain about the essays

1. Didn't do the playtesting reports right (half the essay is plugging them into your analysis)

and/or

2. Haven't realized that Holcomb isn't actually going to read their 70+ page report and, while he'd still like them to compile data for him to reference, would appreciate a well-written, clear, & concise 6-10 page summary to go with the big report, which again can just be your playtesting reports lumped together and glued with a few paragraphs of analysis. This means your report can in fact use less than a tree's worth of paper.

GAT beyond 211: In which design students are taught that board games /= video games, and knowing how to code is actually important (what a surprise). The rubrics are still vague, but you really should be used to that by now.

This year you're hearing a lot more because Ellenger broke GAT 240. I'm not in the class myself, but what I've heard basically boils down to him expecting the BAGDs to know how to code around ~4x as fast as they actually know how. Maybe if the BAGD's CS classes didn't teach a dying language this could have been avoided. Also, the (remaining) students in the class rallied up multiple times to demand extensions and got some, so your point B isn't to blame in this specific case.

On Ellenger: He's simply a bad teacher. He is a good spokesman however, so incoming students usually develop high expectations of him before realizing that he really doesn't know what he's doing. Him breaking GAT 240 also isn't helping right now.

He would actually fit your point A quite well. His typical behavior is to state something, assume there's no exceptions, treat it as the law, and passively chastise people who point out the inevitable exceptions (instead of, I don't know, actually making counter arguments). Then he comes back the next year with revised statements (based on said exceptions) and the exact same attitude. It's rather juvenile, especially for an instructor.

Hopefully that gives you a clearer view of what's going on without having to take one of the entry-level GAT classes (which are mostly weed-out classes & prep for later courses. It'd be a waste of your time as a non-design student.)

I am in GAT240, so I can shed some light on that. He asked us to do a project in excel for project 1, and gave us essentially nothing to go off of besides "go google shit here's the rubric". When we actually got to it, the difficult part was the logic behind things rather than anything actually specific to excel. (i.e. it would've been almost as hard in c++) It's stupid, we tell him it's stupid, we get dismissed. Turns out, we were right, and he had to curve the whole thing by 20 points.

Second assignment comes and it's like 70+ hours of work in 3 weeks. Yes, 70 fucking hours. The rubric is full of total garbage that has no reason to be there other than to fill time. We again tell him this is stupid, (in a much nicer/more constructive fashion ofc) and he again disagrees. This project was even worse because his lectures were about bullshit general game design philosophy on sound, randomness, and etc. There was even a fucking linear math lecture. No thanks, I passed that class already.Enough complaints come in that he changes the weighting on the visual/art stuff so that you can't get < -100% from audio alone. We got 15-20 people to show up for game design council, which I'd think has to be a record, and a bunch of us also filed complaints with the dean of faculty about how awful this class was and how bad Ellinger was to anyone who dared question him or the class. (if any of you were waiting, now's a good time)

tl;dr it's not that the code is a problem for BAGDs only, it's that it was a fuckton of work for EVERYONE, but BAGDs had it particularly bad because some of them have almost never touched Zero, Also, taking classes with no content on Moodle and completely irrelevant lectures doesn't help.

rubric link: https://distance.digipen.edu/2015-fall/mod/resource/view.php?id=19732 (not sure if this works for those not in the class)

>>2947

BSGD here, can confirm everything this guy says is true.

>>2945

>On Ellenger: He's simply a bad teacher. He is a good spokesman however, so incoming students usually develop high expectations of him before realizing that he really doesn't know what he's doing.

>His typical behavior is to state something, assume there's no exceptions, treat it as the law, and passively chastise people who point out the inevitable exceptions (instead of, I don't know, actually making counter arguments). Then he comes back the next year with revised statements (based on said exceptions) and the exact same attitude. It's rather juvenile, especially for an instructor.

You hit the nail right on the head here. The other part of the problem is, he has zero ability to put himself in the shoes of a student. Whenever he changes a rubric to add more things for students to do (such as, whoops, now your GAM200 project needs an editor, two weeks before it's due), and you approach him about it, he basically tells you, "I mean, it's not that hard, if I started on it right now, it would only take me a couple hours to make."

>>2950

(ctd.) And that example was for GAM, where at least you have RTIS students who can maybe do something like that. He has the same attitude for GAT classes, expecting BAGDs to be able to code better than they've been taught, and BSGDs to be able to have time to code as much as he expects the BAGDs to do, even though BSGDs have, y'know, actual CS classes and are probably doing actual programming on their GAM project's engine.

He's just out of touch up there on top of his mountain of game design and bullshit

>>2949

I'll post a link that works when I get off campus then.

Also, seriously, those of you who have complaints with his behavior should get them heard by the higher ups now while we GAT240ites are pushing.

Semi related

I'm a freshman who quickly switched from BSCSGD to BSCS and Ellenger is still my faculty advisor. I didn't apply for a new one initially because I thought it might be valuable to be able to glean some interesting design stuff from him outside of GAT classes. Is this a good idea or should I switch advisors? They don't really need to be in any specific department excluding CE because I do a fair amount of everything.

>>2956

I'm surprised they didn't give you a new advisor, has SRS updated to say you're BSCS? Anyhow, keep him. He's actually a great person to talk to about anything and he has worked at various places such as Microsoft. If you visit him like once a semester just to discuss that to make sure you're on track to graduate or someshit only for the reason that he'll know who you are. You'll make a great connection and he can possibly influence a job for you.

>>2956

He's not a bad person. I've talked to him in cafe and shot the shit, and he's absolutely a good game designer and interesting to talk to.

He's just a shit teacher and a narcissist, which go together about as well as clorox and ammonia.

promised rubric link:http://www.mediafire.com/view/5puwlxkwblqhntz/TurnBasedRPG_%281%29.xlsx

>>2960

holy shit, that's the rubric? And you have to do everything up to intermediate to not lose points?? How long did they have to do it? Something like that would only missing writing and then would be a full fledged indie RPG of decent quality. Seems a bit much to me…

>>2965

They had from the start of the semester to.. I think 4/5 weeks in to do it.

(I was a BSGD who transferred out last year)

>>2957

No apparently it will change in SRS by January but I've heard your faculty advisor can be someone outside your major. I think I'll meet with Ellenger and see if I like him. If not I'm thinking either Prof Saulls or Mead. Duba is my favorite professor but I really don't care about the super low level engineering stuff.

>>2974

When it updates, you'll get a new advisor. I don't understand entirely why since as you said you can get any professor as an advisor. Like I said, Ben isn't a bad person. People just hate his teachings.

>>2965

>>2968

We had 3 weeks. It got extended to 4 because everyone was gonna fail the class.

No shit it's a bit much.

>>2978

hey man it's your fault you're in an Early Access degree program

oh wait they didn't tell you it was Early Access until after you'd been there for over a year? you thought it was a complete, polished, industry-standard degree program because that's what everyone said about DigiPen? you didn't know that they were just talking about RTIS?

lol, and they said I was crazy for dropping out

bscsgd here taking gat120; this is the only class i have 100% in. 2 topics per paper, 1-2 pages per week and i write the paper an hour before class every day. I'm not sure how people keep making the same formatting mistakes.

tldr;

>>just open ellinger's site on half your screen

>>use free microsoft word

>>use enough words from zenrhino

>>SPELL CHECK

>>100%

I am so fucking tired of hearing people bitching about GAT240. Every day I walk in and I hear BAGDs who I know for a fucking fact are not taking 211 this semester cause they did it over summer or some shit bitching about how overworked they are in their one god damned project class. BSGDs can complain. Holy shit, they are fucked and Ellinger assigning as much work as he did at the start was absolutely a problem.

But, damn, as a BAGD in 211, it's fine.

Especially since Ellinger WAS RECEPTIVE TO FEEDBACK and made the rubrics into what they should have been after people actually talked to him instead of trying to roast him in front of the entire sophomore design class. I am fucking embarrassed to be associated with all of you people.

I am so tired about hearing people bitch about how bad of a professor Ellinger is. Even if he is, and he's not great, he absolutely responded to people once they tried to actually fucking talk with him. Maybe bitching to the whole school isn't a productive way to get problems solved? Maybe trying to report the vice president of DigiPen to the dean of faculty isn't a productive way to get problems solved? Maybe actually understanding how to talk to a fucking professor IS a way to solve your god damn stupid ass bitchy problems. BSGDs have a right to bitch, I'll allow it, but I will not let anybody doing jack fucking shit complain about how overworked they are.

This is GAT now, drop or deal. 250 won't be any easier, and will likely be even more bullshit.

>>3126

BSGD here, I approve of this message.

Luckily he unfucked the rubric for the platformer and adventure game. As long as you don't start it 4 days before it's due you'll be fine.

>>3119

This anon gets it. You'll do fine through GAT 211 like that while the rest of your class types up 80+ pages per boardgame because they don't actually know what Holcomb is looking for.

>>3139

One of the biggest problem us GDs have, ladies & gents. If this isn't your problem, you're either doing something right or have your head shoved too far up your ass to tell. Learn the difference and better yourself today.

>>3126

Good points on the situation. I've heard a number of students initially made personal complaints to Ellinger before the figurative rioting started, but a little organization has and would go a long way with most of the issues students bring up, unlike what ended up with 240.

I have to disagree with your end note on GAT 250 though, as someone who skipped GAT 240 last year to take GAT 250 instead. Ellinger would have to bulldoze 250 in a similar way to make it even comparatively hard. Not that Morrison wouldn't let him, but I get the feeling that Ellinger only cared so much about 240 this year because people like myself were skipping and waving it. The rubrics are much more lenient, and while the assignments are vague, they also don't demand nearly as much. Plus Prof. Morrison is a pretty chill guy. If you…

1. Passed freshman GAM

2. Did at least a notable portion of the scripting for those teams

3. Know how to manage your time at all

…you'll be absolutely fine. GAT 240, as much as Ellinger would hate to admit, is filler. It's not total crap, but having looked over the stuff this year's students are doing it's mostly re-iterating stuff you should've learned in prior GAM (plus MS Excel). Perhaps that's what he was trying to somehow address ("if they do more they'll learn more" isn't the worst train of thought I've heard) but he's too disconnected to of had a good chance to pull it off.

I'm also BSGD btw. But the 250 I had was far from difficult for the typical BAGD (no one in my class failed to my knowledge). Just another time sink. You'll all be fine if you don't procrastinate.

>I have to disagree with your end note on GAT 250 though, as someone who skipped GAT 240 last year to take GAT 250 instead. Ellinger would have to bulldoze 250 in a similar way to make it even comparatively hard.

Fair enough, you'd know better than me.

>>3152

Out of curiosity how/why could you waive 240? Cause if I don't ABSOLUTELY need to take it, I would rather just take another CS course

>>3208

It's actually pretty hard; since it's a filler class they try even harder to force you into it, and since Ellinger recently changed it it'll be even harder. You basically have to prove to someone of decent standing within the faculty that you can do ALL of the things that the class teaches. For GAT 240, passing GAT 250 and proving that you've spent more than 5 minutes in Excel used to be enough (if you talked to anyone other than Ellinger). You'd probably have to do much more now though.

Regardless, I'd either get on Morrison's (the GAT professor for just about everything beyond 240) and/or Schilling's good side and go ask them only once you're ready to prove that you already know everything in the class. The problem with Ellinger is, now that the class is his child and everyone's been throwing rocks at it, he's almost guaranteed to immediately get butthurt by the simple fact that you asked and refuse you outright. Take it to someone else or don't do it at all.

And chances are that you'll have to replace it with another GAT class (for degree purposes), so that other CS course is unlikely unless you make it one of your electives. Don't say that's your plan if they ask either, since most of the people who have the authority to determine if you can waive a class or not are in the GAT program and don't like it when students try to loophole their way out of their program (though trying to loophole into their classes is a completely different story).

>>3272

Thank you based sage

>>3208

you could try switching majors, the real degrees don't require GAT 240