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QANTM reviews.

Submitted by sammole on

Hey guys,

I'm seriously considering doin a CUF50107 Diploma of Screen and Media (with a specialisation in Animation) online from QANTM Brisbane, i have done some googling and have found some people saying how poor their course was an not recommending it at all, having said that, it was from 2005 and i cant really find anything more recent.

Is their anyone here who may be able to shed some light on the current quality of QANTM courses and if it is something i will get value from.

Thankyou very much

Sam

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Wed, 10/08/11 - 11:40 PM Permalink

So in a course intended to assist graduates enter the small and uncompromising industry here, each major should focus entirely on their major and ignore everything else in the field?

Go the fuck away and learn what 'course majors' are. The point of these 'unrelated' subjects is to produce a graduate who can MAKE GAMES. Take programming. You want to learn to program, go and buy the book called "Learn C++ in 21 days." You'll learn basic/intermediate C++ if you stick with it, maybe even then some if you do tutorials and work hard.

What you won't learn is how to work in a team, how games are designed, how the art asset integration process works, how to design and develop a system specifically for a kickass space simulator.

But hey, you haven't 'wasted time' on the 'crap' that is learning how to make video games.

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Wed, 10/08/11 - 11:50 PM Permalink

It's unfortunate that QUT not only offers not only a Bachelor of Engineering (Software Major) but also a Bachelor of Games and Interactive Entertainment.

It's also unfortunate that tertiary courses soley designed for programming... don't exist. At least, don't exist in any realistic sense. TAFE courses are simply too generalised, while University courses tend to diverge the focus over a range of topics related to the course field.

I mean, it's almost like Qantm's trying to make you a well-rounded individual with the best chance of getting a job in the industry...

I'm a current student, and I would be the first to say that Qantm has a high dropout and low employment rate, but take a look at the fucking industry people. Games in Australia, never too great to begin with, has been steadily collapsing these last few years. Add to that the endless stream of applicants who think a course in 'making games' will be the same as playing them.

A lot of the lecturers, in my opinion, are just jaded for having seen too many enthusiastic but lazy kids who just can't handle the workload.

If you are thinking about applying here, be sure that you're serious about working in the industry. It's tough, and Qantm will just be the start of it. But don't rag on Qantm, and especially don't make shit up. What his guy above me has said may well be true in some cases, but it could just as easily happen at any other university.

Oh and one other thing - games companies turn out substandard code regularly; it doesn't mean shit as long as the end product ships bug-free before the programmers burn out.

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Thu, 11/08/11 - 12:12 AM Permalink

Take a look on the site and see how much of the Qantm courses you can do by reading books and doing free online tutorials.

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Thu, 11/08/11 - 12:16 AM Permalink

The fuck? The only way you can speak for all the campuses is if you've actually done a course at all of them.

Forget what people say, everyone has to decide whether they would rather go to Uni and have a chance at getting the industry with a formal qualification + some actual skills, or sitting on their asses and motivating themselves to teach themselves.

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Fri, 12/08/11 - 6:40 PM Permalink

QANTM is pretty simple, i graduated in 08 and when i did my work looking back at it was shit. Don't get me wrong my 3d work was still Distinctions and High Distinctions.. but after a year out of uni looking for work and basically teaching myself how to actually model, use ZBrush (normal mapping was optional and i think i was one of the only ones to even try it... and this is in 08). Some of the subjects were useless, you're final project was a joke when i was there. Animation or game.. why not go make 3-4 QUALITY characters with all your spec / diffuse / normal / emissive if needed etc and use them for your folio. Game option was ok if you wanted to do that, but they should have allowed another option besides doing an animation.

The teachers then were pretty decent, a few were meh but it wasn't so much the teachers as it was the content, the skills we were learning were out dated. Classes were diluted from trying to concentrate too many things, not enough actual modeling courses etc.

Cutting all the crap, i learnt more teaching myself from some online tutorials in 1 year then i did in the 2 @ QANTM.... Also i didn't fork out 36k for a few tutorials.

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Wed, 17/08/11 - 10:26 AM Permalink

It's amusing hearing people complain about being given links to online tutorials, or training from books, dvds etc. What else are you expecting? You're not paying for a custom tutorial, you are paying for a formal education. You get taught the theory, then you get shown how to put that into practice with a tutorial/exercise. This is exactly what happens in a large state university. I suspect most of the people that have bad experiences at private universities would have had equally bad experiences at state universities. For whatever reason though, private universities seem to attract the kind of people that expect to be spoon fed, hence the more visible criticism for private universities.

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Wed, 17/08/11 - 10:29 PM Permalink

It's less amusing though hearing about QANTM having low standards and bad teachers. And really, no amount of crying "but other places are just as bad.." will make up for it. I suspect that most of the people that have had bad experiences with a private college probably went to a bad private college.

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Wed, 24/08/11 - 7:15 PM Permalink

I've been reading through a bunch of Forums regarding Qantm, JMC, AIE, etc, and i've seen quite a fair share of both bad and good comments. I've had older friends that go to Places like UNSW, UWS and UTS and some complained that it was terrible. I don't know if it was simply because they were still in High school state of mind and didn't like having to work for themselves, or if the place was bad. THey just said ï had a hard time. don't go there"

Now i just want an honest opinion, especially from people that have attended a private college which are 'specialist' in multimedia, Is it seriously what you make of it? or is it really because the teachers are incompetent and the quality of equipment is crap?

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Thu, 25/08/11 - 8:31 AM Permalink

I've attended QANTM Sydney and have to say that the teachers there were terrible (not all of them, you could find one or two that were alright) and the equipment was lousy; some very old computers and some which were downright not the appropriate hardware for some of the classes. Also the computers were never set up properly and the teacher we had had no idea how to set them up because he used to read the day's lecture materials as he was reading us the lecture...

The lecture notes themselves were fine and the course outline was mostly appropriate (there should have been more emphasis on giving students a strong grounding in their discipline though).

The thing that disgusted me most was the teachers' attitude towards the students; I've had a teacher that blamed half the class for being too stupid to learn what he was teaching (that's mostly a sure sign of a bad teacher by the way). We received no feedback on coursework and assignments and in general the college itself seemed more interested in giving out free grades than actually teaching anything.

As I've hinted, if you're a strong student and have previous experience QANTM will provide some opportunity and facilities for learning, but I honestly cannot recommend going there.

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Fri, 26/08/11 - 3:40 PM Permalink

I find it highly unlikely that a teacher would tell the students to their faces that they're too stupid to learn what they are teaching. They'd get fired for doing so. This seems more like hearsay, and more likely a misrepresentation of what may or may not have been said.

Not to defend Qantm Sydney, as I never studied there but have studied a number of times at a tertiary level. But I gotta say that you kids need to stop whining. Read other people's remarks that state that this is simply the case at pretty much all universities, that it is up to you to make what you will from the experience, that you will never get spoon fed at a regular university than you do at Qantm.

Are true spot on, so, get over it.

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Fri, 26/08/11 - 9:17 PM Permalink

You can argue with reality as much as you want mate, but you'll only come out looking a fool; I see your reading comprehension needs some work. I said that I've attended the school and that I heard it myself, in fact the teacher in question, I'd name names but I'm not sure what souri's stance on that sort of thing is so I won't, said it to me about other students in the school.

I got over QANTM awhile ago, I'm just trying to help people not waste their money on a near worthless business.

You kids?? lol, how old do you think I am?

And again, saying that other places are rubbish is not a good argument to make for allowing QANTM to be rubbish; I'd get fired if I ever told my boss, "look, I've not met deadlines but that's alright because other programmers don't meet deadlines either"... It's a moronic excuse and in the case of education institutions a dangerous one. I don't understand this whole concept of defending higher-education schools; you pay money to be taught, you should be taught, it isn't really a complex equation there. These cat-calls of "Stop whining" and "Nobody's gonna spoon feed you" aren't helping the situation. Complaining, taking action against the school and warning other people is the only way that places like QANTM will ever become better (short of getting a job there and fighting the good fight, I know at least one person who quit the Brisbane branch because they told him to rig marks). Are people really that afraid to admit they've spent money on some snake oil?

Submitted by Riku (not verified) on Sat, 27/08/11 - 4:11 AM Permalink

wow, after reading all those negative comments...about qantm lol just wow

so i was wondering, how is qantm in London? i applied there and got accepted for the interactive animation course, (2 years)

is there anyone here that could tell me whether the classes are hard? is there a lot to study? is basic drawing skill enough or do i need to be some Pixar bad a$$ motherf"""""r?:p

Or should i switch to the game design course? cause i also like programming, soooo not sure

any help would be greatly appreciated

(sorry for any mistakes but english isnt my primary language lol...im european xD)

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Wed, 31/08/11 - 6:54 PM Permalink

Wow.....ok.....and my Orientation day is Friday next week :/
I have a background in multimedia/visual effects and a very keen interest in 3D...I have tuts but unless i have a real project to work on I find that video tuts/ wep-page tuts can drive me nuts.

i don't know....is being really keen to learn enough? Discipline; I have that in spades.

btw...sydney

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Wed, 31/08/11 - 11:38 PM Permalink

ask lots of questions, look at the facilities, look at the student work that came out of the Sydney branch in the last few years (make sure you look at the Sydney students work, QANTM has a habit of showing old work from other campuses without mentioning it). Ask about the industry experience that the teachers have and their qualifications, make sure they're all legit and have the appropriate knowledge in their respective fields (just as an example the game programming teacher in Sydney used to program slot machines, which is technically gaming, but not the right kind) and make up your own mind.

Submitted by havster09 (not verified) on Sun, 20/11/11 - 12:59 PM Permalink

I did quantm's diploma of screen when 3d max was still at version 6. The course was overpriced and useless. Most of my classmates never went on to work in the industry. This is partly because of the poor course subjects but more because of the shortage of jobs in Sydney. Game studios have short lifespans in sydney........And high end studios never take you on because you only do chimp work like architectural visualization or short animations.

I only wished I had better internet back when I was a student as the downloadable tutorials/gnomon on offer are better and thorough than listening to some boob lecturer bs.

It seems that the only jobs left are back at quantm fooling more noobs into thinking they will make the next cod. It is a tough job market out there for 3d graduates......especially when indian 3d artists will do it for less and complete the project faster.

While I still love 3d it is imperative you develop a backup skill if you want to eat and pay off a mortgage.

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Thu, 01/12/11 - 3:34 PM Permalink

Im a current Qantm student myself and im majoring in Games Programming, and im due to do my final projects next year.

All i can which campus you goto depends greatly on your major

Programming - Brisbane and Melbourne
Animation - Sydney and Melbourne
Design - Brisbane and Melbourne

Word of warning: If you are going to study Programming avoid Sydney, they've had a few issues with the lecturers there.

Also the People who are saying it was a waste of time doing other courses, really there are going to be other non major courses in any Australian degree.

Qantm Provides the students with an excellent platform to learn, they wont teach you everything thats your job to learn, so suck it up and learn it.
An example is sometimes we have 1hr Lectures followed by 2hr Tutorial for Programmers @ the Brisbane campus. There have been instances where it turned into a 3hr lecture because we were all interested in the topic so we asked the lecturer to expand on it.

Here an example:
We were learning AI and how it can apply to Animations in games. To demonstrate this our lecturer brought in a Kinect and we recorded movements, and applied some AI the animations. This was excellent not only did we learn heaps over those two weeks but we have heaps of fun i dont know what AIE is about. But this is one of many examples how Qantm teachers can go out of their way to get all of us interested.

The Leaky roof:
That was the fault of the Body Corporate who owns the building, not Qantm, they are the ones who failed there they should be blamed.

Poor Quality Chairs:
Suck it up, seriously ><

So to sum up pick your campus carefully, it will define your choice. The Brisbane campus is the better Campus, hands down when compared to other campus'.

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Thu, 19/01/12 - 1:48 PM Permalink

Hi All!

I've just been reading through all these comments and it seems 80% are against Qantm.

I was considering their Cert 3 in Media but was shocked by the $4000 fee for a part time 6 month course, so wanted to check things out.
This is the only forum I've come across discussing the quality of it.

One of the biggest things I'm trying to find out which is probably the most important, is if Qantm is a preferred educator for Industry employers and professionals? I know with all industry’s they have their preferred education stream.

I find it a bit strange that Qantm is all over the world, but is receiving such negative responses.

I work full time and right now can't do "proper" part time training which is why an online option would be great, but I want to do this properly and get the correct training and if that means waiting a little longer until I can physically attend classes/training/college whatever you want to call it - then I will.

I just need some real and honest direction. ANYONE OUT THERE IN THE INDUSTRY ALREADY THAT CAN HELP US?!

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Mon, 23/01/12 - 10:08 AM Permalink

A cert 3 is not going to get you anywhere near the industry.

It should not really matter too much where you do it (or what you do it in). If you wish to follow up that cert 3 with a diploma or degree then you can start thinking of industry pathways open to you.

You will find that the games industry typically likes you to have a degree in something related to the field but its quite flexible. They will hire the best and most talented people they can find and they don't always have qualifications. The trick is just to make games and make them well.

As for the cost, $4,000 is ridiculous for a cert 3. AIE does cert 3's for $1600 and Tafe can do them for under $1000 (with government subsidies).

I suggest you look into all your available options (Qantm, AIE, Tafe) and pick one that will give you a taste of games development in your chosen field (Art or programming, you wont find a design course at such a low level).

I know the AIE's cert 2 and 3 in coding allows you to create a game or two. The art course I think gets you to import some stuff into a game engine (not 100% sure). A Tafe will most likely only offer certs in IT and it wont have anything to do with games (but you can use it as a platform for self taught learning). For the price they ask I'm sure Qantm is going to give you a fair amount of content but even so that price seems silly for something as low as a cert 3.

Your call.

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Mon, 23/01/12 - 4:27 PM Permalink

I'd really advise against study at the moment. 37K sounds like a ****load of money to invest in a career with very limited job prospects locally and a very small narrow chance of getting work overseas. While there might be a number of small Indy studios doing iPad/iPhone development there really isn't the job market that was available for a games graduate that existed 2 or 3 years ago due to a lot of big studio closures.

Have a look at the company banners to the right- at the top of the screen. How many of those companies actually make games? I can think of five big studios that used to have their company logo there, and each one of these companies employed over 100+ people.

Most of the talent has headed overseas but not all of it. It's tough out there landing a gig even if you do have game dev experience. If you graduate you'll find yourself competing with more experienced job applicants and (if your an artist) people with, in all likelihood better portfolios. Junior positions are almost non-existent.

The situation may yet change, in that the Aussie dollar's value may drop and big studios may start to re-emerge, tax breaks may yet be implemented - but that is by no means a certainty. And there is also the potential for these new studios to repeat the mistakes of some of their Australian predecessors. (Work for hire, poor management, budget titles that fail to sell. All of this stuff is fairly well documented on tsumea in various forums/threads)

If you still wish to pursue a career in games, well pick a field: art, coding, design and do it well. Games is/was about specialisation. Most programmers tend to come to games after studying programming at a tertiary level and tend to know and use several languages. (I think they tend to use C and its relatives, VB and java, though my memory is hazy.) They have to write efficient code that can be run in real-time. And coding is also about specialisation - are you an AI programmer, a graphics programmer, a systems programmer...

If you're an aspiring artist look at the ploycount forums - that is the standard that you should be aiming for in character/environment/prop creation. There is a ton of information just on that site alone to get an artist started.

Animators - set up good reels of character/creature walk cycles, movements, facial expressions etc. Look at the way things move/behave animate around you. look at other people's work. Study it.

Design is a very tricky one to teach, but if your an aspiring designer get yourself a game engine and start fiddling with it. Make some mini games. These don't have to be polished but just grey boxed, and they have to be fun. Think of what motivates a player - what will make a player want to continue playing your game. Remember that you aren't making a game for yourself, it is more important that other people really enjoy it.

No matter what discipline you choose download and play with an enigine like either cryengine, unity or udk. Impliment something in it.

While this won't garantee you a job in the biz it will give you an idea as to what is involved.

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Tue, 24/01/12 - 4:27 PM Permalink

Thanks "A cert 3 is not going to get"!

I definatley know a Ceert 3 alone won't get me near into the Industry alone, it was more of a starting point as I work full time and wo'nt be studying full time for another year, so was looking into something I can manage with full time work.

However I think the biggest issue was the cost and you've pretty much solved that problem!

Thanks very much!

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Wed, 25/01/12 - 12:18 AM Permalink

Eat 3d tutorials are just MP4 files and don't have any region coding. I'd suggest just buying a digital download and then burning them to CD if you really want a hard copy. It'll save you a few bucks and you can have them within a few minutes of laying down your cash.

Submitted by anonymous (not verified) on Fri, 27/01/12 - 4:35 PM Permalink

I finished my studying at qantm, didn't get a job with it. Learnt so much about animation in my first semester with these guys. www.animschool.com

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Sun, 29/01/12 - 9:28 PM Permalink

Reading some of these replies were making me worried about Qantm which is where I'll be studying Games Design, Melbourne to be exact.

To be honest, I severely lack in artistic/drawing skills but I know this won't be required in more than half of the course. People I've talked to who have graduated from Qantm or still studying at Qantm have given me pretty much the same response which is that they had little or no knowledge prior to starting the course. (I'm talking about Games Design) So it should be no excuse for the students that may fall behind.

It's really up to student to be where they want to be. I know I'll be taking the extra steps in order to at the same pace as to whatever I'm learning/have to learn at Qantm.

Yeah, I hope I'll have a solid time @ QANTM Melbourne :)

Submitted by havster09 (not verified) on Thu, 09/02/12 - 4:07 PM Permalink

Don't worry about your 'lack in artistic/drawing skills' when doing the 3d course at Quantm......the hand drawing portion of the course is just filler because they have nothing else to teach.

Glad to hear you will be taking extra steps.....try to learn subdivisional modeling as soon as possible....the rest becomes easy to learn after that....

But to learn and to master is worlds apart.

Submitted by Duality on Sun, 01/04/12 - 9:16 AM Permalink

I found this post while looking for some reviews of QANTM, I can't be the only one. I am looking at the Brisbane campus as the accelerated program is appealing.

I'm not going to claim I know QANTM. I went to the recent open day at the Brisbane campus before they moved to the slick new building and I'll probably go have a look at the facilities there when I can too. It was a little shabby, but a good atmosphere. Aside from it being so small it wasn't worse than a lot of the older buildings at UQ or QUT. Hopefully that's changed too.

Anyway to get to my point. I've stuffed around (inadvertently) for years with degrees. I've taken multiple courses at QUT and UQ trying to find what the heck it is that I want with my life. In this time, I've seen *exactly* what people are describing at QANTM happening at both of these universities. I've seen it at Carseldine (when QUT ran that), Garden's Point and Kelvin Grove. I've also seen it at St Lucia.

Many classrooms lack proper space or facilities. Some computers are ageing and falling apart. Then again, sometimes you get lucky and get a lab with amazing new facilities. It's just how things are... These institutions are too large to just throw things out once they get a few scuffs or aren't the newest tech available.

Teachers suck sometimes too, everywhere. Tutors are just students, lecturers often seem to see lecturing as a distraction from whatever research they're doing or they're so inept at using technology that lecture materials are rarely up on time/at all, or the classes are a boring waste of time. Heck, as recently as last year I was at UQ and one lecturer was using OHT's with hand drawn illustrations to teach hundreds of people... URGH. I thought I left those behind in high school.

Lectures are often just rehashes of the textbook, with the odd hint about what'll be on the exam thrown in to keep people coming, slides are usually just scans from textbooks with links to 'Blackboard' or other online resources. Administration can be inept (I had them lose seriously important documents for over 9 months! Cool! Lucky I had it date stamped..) and so on and so forth. This stuff is *EVERYWHERE*. And guess what? I did poorly.

But at least I have grown enough to know my failings were my own. I did courses I wasn't passionate about, I got distracted, I procrastinated or I just flat out didn't work at it (World of Warcraft...). And now I am where I am. Other people who took those courses now have jobs in the industry of their choice. Given the poor conditions how is that possible? They pushed through. It's just life guys, even in the larger businesses I've worked for we deal with the same stuff... Inept managers, poor resources and technology, dodgy facilities... It's everywhere.

Again, I don't know. Maybe QANTM is corrupt and evil and they drug your coffee to make you fail while they laugh atop a pile of money. But I am finding some of these criticisms a little naive. I've had an unfortunate history of my own creation but at least I've gotten some perspective from it. My 2c. Thanks for reading.

Submitted by ulthias on Mon, 02/04/12 - 11:44 AM Permalink

I'm not really sure what you're saying there to be honest... If you're lazy you're lazy, if you're hard-working you're hard-working.. Not really a surprise revelation there mate. Your personal (or mine, or anyone's) motivation has NOTHING to do with the quality of the institution that they are in. QANTM's teachers, facilities and materials are lacking, what does it matter if other places are also rubbish??

And for the record, the issue with QANTM isn't that they're evil and try to fail you, it's the exact opposite! QANTM will let you pass even though you should not. I've seen and had this myself, Specifically on one class that I remember, I should have (along with ALL the rest of the class ) received a failed grade on an assignment but we all passed [and before anyone asks, yes I did mention it to the faculty and said that I should have failed, no one listened].

Submitted by Duality on Mon, 02/04/12 - 11:35 PM Permalink

It matters because I am yet to see anyone give a really good example in this thread of an institution that actually met their expectations. I've already said that QUT and UQ aren't much better than QANTM (if at all) from the facilities, why is that irrelevant? Are the facilities better anywhere else? Can we get some legitimate examples? And do these little things really impact you that much when at the end of the day it's your own hours and hard work that'll make a successful student & shining portfolio?

Everyone is complaining about old chairs or whatever, I'm starting to think they were expecting QANTM to be some sort of sci-fi X-Men style school for the gifted with no expense spared. Where is this magical place I can go to with supercomputers for every student, individual one on one teaching with legends in their fields, etc...???? Uni doesn't have it, QANTM doesn't have it, but everyone's upset they didn't get it. And also... Did nobody attend an open day before they signed up? These things should've been readily apparent.

Plus QANTM is even easier to get into than university, so if anything I'd expect it to be shabbier. There's that price argument but they're upfront about the cost, it's a short degree and the government artificially brings down other courses in many cases. So that's kind of a moot point to me, if it didn't look like good value going in then I don't know why anyone signed up in the first place.

To me this whole thread just seems like people complaining about higher education. It is what it is... Use the time to network and work hard at getting the 'paper' to complement your skills. O_o

Submitted by ulthias on Tue, 03/04/12 - 3:20 PM Permalink

huh? This thread is called "QANTM Reviews" not "Reviews of Higher Education Facilities" if you want to debate the merits or drawbacks of all universities you should create a new thread for it. Barring that, accept the fact that the thread is about QANTM, not to mention proves that QANTM (specifically in Sydney but most likely everywhere) is a sham and get on with your life...

P.S.
If you read through the thread itself you'll actually see that there are some very severe arguments against QANTM's curriculum and teaching experience (mainly, the curriculum doesn't cover basic programming skills and that Sydney's teacher comes from a background of slot machines NOT actual games and has on numerous occasions acted unprofessionally in his capacity as a teacher), I don't know about chairs nor do I care.

Posted by sammole on

Hey guys,

I'm seriously considering doin a CUF50107 Diploma of Screen and Media (with a specialisation in Animation) online from QANTM Brisbane, i have done some googling and have found some people saying how poor their course was an not recommending it at all, having said that, it was from 2005 and i cant really find anything more recent.

Is their anyone here who may be able to shed some light on the current quality of QANTM courses and if it is something i will get value from.

Thankyou very much

Sam


Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Wed, 10/08/11 - 11:40 PM Permalink

So in a course intended to assist graduates enter the small and uncompromising industry here, each major should focus entirely on their major and ignore everything else in the field?

Go the fuck away and learn what 'course majors' are. The point of these 'unrelated' subjects is to produce a graduate who can MAKE GAMES. Take programming. You want to learn to program, go and buy the book called "Learn C++ in 21 days." You'll learn basic/intermediate C++ if you stick with it, maybe even then some if you do tutorials and work hard.

What you won't learn is how to work in a team, how games are designed, how the art asset integration process works, how to design and develop a system specifically for a kickass space simulator.

But hey, you haven't 'wasted time' on the 'crap' that is learning how to make video games.

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Wed, 10/08/11 - 11:50 PM Permalink

It's unfortunate that QUT not only offers not only a Bachelor of Engineering (Software Major) but also a Bachelor of Games and Interactive Entertainment.

It's also unfortunate that tertiary courses soley designed for programming... don't exist. At least, don't exist in any realistic sense. TAFE courses are simply too generalised, while University courses tend to diverge the focus over a range of topics related to the course field.

I mean, it's almost like Qantm's trying to make you a well-rounded individual with the best chance of getting a job in the industry...

I'm a current student, and I would be the first to say that Qantm has a high dropout and low employment rate, but take a look at the fucking industry people. Games in Australia, never too great to begin with, has been steadily collapsing these last few years. Add to that the endless stream of applicants who think a course in 'making games' will be the same as playing them.

A lot of the lecturers, in my opinion, are just jaded for having seen too many enthusiastic but lazy kids who just can't handle the workload.

If you are thinking about applying here, be sure that you're serious about working in the industry. It's tough, and Qantm will just be the start of it. But don't rag on Qantm, and especially don't make shit up. What his guy above me has said may well be true in some cases, but it could just as easily happen at any other university.

Oh and one other thing - games companies turn out substandard code regularly; it doesn't mean shit as long as the end product ships bug-free before the programmers burn out.

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Thu, 11/08/11 - 12:12 AM Permalink

Take a look on the site and see how much of the Qantm courses you can do by reading books and doing free online tutorials.

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Thu, 11/08/11 - 12:16 AM Permalink

The fuck? The only way you can speak for all the campuses is if you've actually done a course at all of them.

Forget what people say, everyone has to decide whether they would rather go to Uni and have a chance at getting the industry with a formal qualification + some actual skills, or sitting on their asses and motivating themselves to teach themselves.

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Fri, 12/08/11 - 6:40 PM Permalink

QANTM is pretty simple, i graduated in 08 and when i did my work looking back at it was shit. Don't get me wrong my 3d work was still Distinctions and High Distinctions.. but after a year out of uni looking for work and basically teaching myself how to actually model, use ZBrush (normal mapping was optional and i think i was one of the only ones to even try it... and this is in 08). Some of the subjects were useless, you're final project was a joke when i was there. Animation or game.. why not go make 3-4 QUALITY characters with all your spec / diffuse / normal / emissive if needed etc and use them for your folio. Game option was ok if you wanted to do that, but they should have allowed another option besides doing an animation.

The teachers then were pretty decent, a few were meh but it wasn't so much the teachers as it was the content, the skills we were learning were out dated. Classes were diluted from trying to concentrate too many things, not enough actual modeling courses etc.

Cutting all the crap, i learnt more teaching myself from some online tutorials in 1 year then i did in the 2 @ QANTM.... Also i didn't fork out 36k for a few tutorials.

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Wed, 17/08/11 - 10:26 AM Permalink

It's amusing hearing people complain about being given links to online tutorials, or training from books, dvds etc. What else are you expecting? You're not paying for a custom tutorial, you are paying for a formal education. You get taught the theory, then you get shown how to put that into practice with a tutorial/exercise. This is exactly what happens in a large state university. I suspect most of the people that have bad experiences at private universities would have had equally bad experiences at state universities. For whatever reason though, private universities seem to attract the kind of people that expect to be spoon fed, hence the more visible criticism for private universities.

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Wed, 17/08/11 - 10:29 PM Permalink

It's less amusing though hearing about QANTM having low standards and bad teachers. And really, no amount of crying "but other places are just as bad.." will make up for it. I suspect that most of the people that have had bad experiences with a private college probably went to a bad private college.

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Wed, 24/08/11 - 7:15 PM Permalink

I've been reading through a bunch of Forums regarding Qantm, JMC, AIE, etc, and i've seen quite a fair share of both bad and good comments. I've had older friends that go to Places like UNSW, UWS and UTS and some complained that it was terrible. I don't know if it was simply because they were still in High school state of mind and didn't like having to work for themselves, or if the place was bad. THey just said ï had a hard time. don't go there"

Now i just want an honest opinion, especially from people that have attended a private college which are 'specialist' in multimedia, Is it seriously what you make of it? or is it really because the teachers are incompetent and the quality of equipment is crap?

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Thu, 25/08/11 - 8:31 AM Permalink

I've attended QANTM Sydney and have to say that the teachers there were terrible (not all of them, you could find one or two that were alright) and the equipment was lousy; some very old computers and some which were downright not the appropriate hardware for some of the classes. Also the computers were never set up properly and the teacher we had had no idea how to set them up because he used to read the day's lecture materials as he was reading us the lecture...

The lecture notes themselves were fine and the course outline was mostly appropriate (there should have been more emphasis on giving students a strong grounding in their discipline though).

The thing that disgusted me most was the teachers' attitude towards the students; I've had a teacher that blamed half the class for being too stupid to learn what he was teaching (that's mostly a sure sign of a bad teacher by the way). We received no feedback on coursework and assignments and in general the college itself seemed more interested in giving out free grades than actually teaching anything.

As I've hinted, if you're a strong student and have previous experience QANTM will provide some opportunity and facilities for learning, but I honestly cannot recommend going there.

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Fri, 26/08/11 - 3:40 PM Permalink

I find it highly unlikely that a teacher would tell the students to their faces that they're too stupid to learn what they are teaching. They'd get fired for doing so. This seems more like hearsay, and more likely a misrepresentation of what may or may not have been said.

Not to defend Qantm Sydney, as I never studied there but have studied a number of times at a tertiary level. But I gotta say that you kids need to stop whining. Read other people's remarks that state that this is simply the case at pretty much all universities, that it is up to you to make what you will from the experience, that you will never get spoon fed at a regular university than you do at Qantm.

Are true spot on, so, get over it.

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Fri, 26/08/11 - 9:17 PM Permalink

You can argue with reality as much as you want mate, but you'll only come out looking a fool; I see your reading comprehension needs some work. I said that I've attended the school and that I heard it myself, in fact the teacher in question, I'd name names but I'm not sure what souri's stance on that sort of thing is so I won't, said it to me about other students in the school.

I got over QANTM awhile ago, I'm just trying to help people not waste their money on a near worthless business.

You kids?? lol, how old do you think I am?

And again, saying that other places are rubbish is not a good argument to make for allowing QANTM to be rubbish; I'd get fired if I ever told my boss, "look, I've not met deadlines but that's alright because other programmers don't meet deadlines either"... It's a moronic excuse and in the case of education institutions a dangerous one. I don't understand this whole concept of defending higher-education schools; you pay money to be taught, you should be taught, it isn't really a complex equation there. These cat-calls of "Stop whining" and "Nobody's gonna spoon feed you" aren't helping the situation. Complaining, taking action against the school and warning other people is the only way that places like QANTM will ever become better (short of getting a job there and fighting the good fight, I know at least one person who quit the Brisbane branch because they told him to rig marks). Are people really that afraid to admit they've spent money on some snake oil?

Submitted by Riku (not verified) on Sat, 27/08/11 - 4:11 AM Permalink

wow, after reading all those negative comments...about qantm lol just wow

so i was wondering, how is qantm in London? i applied there and got accepted for the interactive animation course, (2 years)

is there anyone here that could tell me whether the classes are hard? is there a lot to study? is basic drawing skill enough or do i need to be some Pixar bad a$$ motherf"""""r?:p

Or should i switch to the game design course? cause i also like programming, soooo not sure

any help would be greatly appreciated

(sorry for any mistakes but english isnt my primary language lol...im european xD)

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Wed, 31/08/11 - 6:54 PM Permalink

Wow.....ok.....and my Orientation day is Friday next week :/
I have a background in multimedia/visual effects and a very keen interest in 3D...I have tuts but unless i have a real project to work on I find that video tuts/ wep-page tuts can drive me nuts.

i don't know....is being really keen to learn enough? Discipline; I have that in spades.

btw...sydney

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Wed, 31/08/11 - 11:38 PM Permalink

ask lots of questions, look at the facilities, look at the student work that came out of the Sydney branch in the last few years (make sure you look at the Sydney students work, QANTM has a habit of showing old work from other campuses without mentioning it). Ask about the industry experience that the teachers have and their qualifications, make sure they're all legit and have the appropriate knowledge in their respective fields (just as an example the game programming teacher in Sydney used to program slot machines, which is technically gaming, but not the right kind) and make up your own mind.

Submitted by havster09 (not verified) on Sun, 20/11/11 - 12:59 PM Permalink

I did quantm's diploma of screen when 3d max was still at version 6. The course was overpriced and useless. Most of my classmates never went on to work in the industry. This is partly because of the poor course subjects but more because of the shortage of jobs in Sydney. Game studios have short lifespans in sydney........And high end studios never take you on because you only do chimp work like architectural visualization or short animations.

I only wished I had better internet back when I was a student as the downloadable tutorials/gnomon on offer are better and thorough than listening to some boob lecturer bs.

It seems that the only jobs left are back at quantm fooling more noobs into thinking they will make the next cod. It is a tough job market out there for 3d graduates......especially when indian 3d artists will do it for less and complete the project faster.

While I still love 3d it is imperative you develop a backup skill if you want to eat and pay off a mortgage.

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Thu, 01/12/11 - 3:34 PM Permalink

Im a current Qantm student myself and im majoring in Games Programming, and im due to do my final projects next year.

All i can which campus you goto depends greatly on your major

Programming - Brisbane and Melbourne
Animation - Sydney and Melbourne
Design - Brisbane and Melbourne

Word of warning: If you are going to study Programming avoid Sydney, they've had a few issues with the lecturers there.

Also the People who are saying it was a waste of time doing other courses, really there are going to be other non major courses in any Australian degree.

Qantm Provides the students with an excellent platform to learn, they wont teach you everything thats your job to learn, so suck it up and learn it.
An example is sometimes we have 1hr Lectures followed by 2hr Tutorial for Programmers @ the Brisbane campus. There have been instances where it turned into a 3hr lecture because we were all interested in the topic so we asked the lecturer to expand on it.

Here an example:
We were learning AI and how it can apply to Animations in games. To demonstrate this our lecturer brought in a Kinect and we recorded movements, and applied some AI the animations. This was excellent not only did we learn heaps over those two weeks but we have heaps of fun i dont know what AIE is about. But this is one of many examples how Qantm teachers can go out of their way to get all of us interested.

The Leaky roof:
That was the fault of the Body Corporate who owns the building, not Qantm, they are the ones who failed there they should be blamed.

Poor Quality Chairs:
Suck it up, seriously ><

So to sum up pick your campus carefully, it will define your choice. The Brisbane campus is the better Campus, hands down when compared to other campus'.

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Thu, 19/01/12 - 1:48 PM Permalink

Hi All!

I've just been reading through all these comments and it seems 80% are against Qantm.

I was considering their Cert 3 in Media but was shocked by the $4000 fee for a part time 6 month course, so wanted to check things out.
This is the only forum I've come across discussing the quality of it.

One of the biggest things I'm trying to find out which is probably the most important, is if Qantm is a preferred educator for Industry employers and professionals? I know with all industry’s they have their preferred education stream.

I find it a bit strange that Qantm is all over the world, but is receiving such negative responses.

I work full time and right now can't do "proper" part time training which is why an online option would be great, but I want to do this properly and get the correct training and if that means waiting a little longer until I can physically attend classes/training/college whatever you want to call it - then I will.

I just need some real and honest direction. ANYONE OUT THERE IN THE INDUSTRY ALREADY THAT CAN HELP US?!

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Mon, 23/01/12 - 10:08 AM Permalink

A cert 3 is not going to get you anywhere near the industry.

It should not really matter too much where you do it (or what you do it in). If you wish to follow up that cert 3 with a diploma or degree then you can start thinking of industry pathways open to you.

You will find that the games industry typically likes you to have a degree in something related to the field but its quite flexible. They will hire the best and most talented people they can find and they don't always have qualifications. The trick is just to make games and make them well.

As for the cost, $4,000 is ridiculous for a cert 3. AIE does cert 3's for $1600 and Tafe can do them for under $1000 (with government subsidies).

I suggest you look into all your available options (Qantm, AIE, Tafe) and pick one that will give you a taste of games development in your chosen field (Art or programming, you wont find a design course at such a low level).

I know the AIE's cert 2 and 3 in coding allows you to create a game or two. The art course I think gets you to import some stuff into a game engine (not 100% sure). A Tafe will most likely only offer certs in IT and it wont have anything to do with games (but you can use it as a platform for self taught learning). For the price they ask I'm sure Qantm is going to give you a fair amount of content but even so that price seems silly for something as low as a cert 3.

Your call.

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Mon, 23/01/12 - 4:27 PM Permalink

I'd really advise against study at the moment. 37K sounds like a ****load of money to invest in a career with very limited job prospects locally and a very small narrow chance of getting work overseas. While there might be a number of small Indy studios doing iPad/iPhone development there really isn't the job market that was available for a games graduate that existed 2 or 3 years ago due to a lot of big studio closures.

Have a look at the company banners to the right- at the top of the screen. How many of those companies actually make games? I can think of five big studios that used to have their company logo there, and each one of these companies employed over 100+ people.

Most of the talent has headed overseas but not all of it. It's tough out there landing a gig even if you do have game dev experience. If you graduate you'll find yourself competing with more experienced job applicants and (if your an artist) people with, in all likelihood better portfolios. Junior positions are almost non-existent.

The situation may yet change, in that the Aussie dollar's value may drop and big studios may start to re-emerge, tax breaks may yet be implemented - but that is by no means a certainty. And there is also the potential for these new studios to repeat the mistakes of some of their Australian predecessors. (Work for hire, poor management, budget titles that fail to sell. All of this stuff is fairly well documented on tsumea in various forums/threads)

If you still wish to pursue a career in games, well pick a field: art, coding, design and do it well. Games is/was about specialisation. Most programmers tend to come to games after studying programming at a tertiary level and tend to know and use several languages. (I think they tend to use C and its relatives, VB and java, though my memory is hazy.) They have to write efficient code that can be run in real-time. And coding is also about specialisation - are you an AI programmer, a graphics programmer, a systems programmer...

If you're an aspiring artist look at the ploycount forums - that is the standard that you should be aiming for in character/environment/prop creation. There is a ton of information just on that site alone to get an artist started.

Animators - set up good reels of character/creature walk cycles, movements, facial expressions etc. Look at the way things move/behave animate around you. look at other people's work. Study it.

Design is a very tricky one to teach, but if your an aspiring designer get yourself a game engine and start fiddling with it. Make some mini games. These don't have to be polished but just grey boxed, and they have to be fun. Think of what motivates a player - what will make a player want to continue playing your game. Remember that you aren't making a game for yourself, it is more important that other people really enjoy it.

No matter what discipline you choose download and play with an enigine like either cryengine, unity or udk. Impliment something in it.

While this won't garantee you a job in the biz it will give you an idea as to what is involved.

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Tue, 24/01/12 - 4:27 PM Permalink

Thanks "A cert 3 is not going to get"!

I definatley know a Ceert 3 alone won't get me near into the Industry alone, it was more of a starting point as I work full time and wo'nt be studying full time for another year, so was looking into something I can manage with full time work.

However I think the biggest issue was the cost and you've pretty much solved that problem!

Thanks very much!

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Wed, 25/01/12 - 12:18 AM Permalink

Eat 3d tutorials are just MP4 files and don't have any region coding. I'd suggest just buying a digital download and then burning them to CD if you really want a hard copy. It'll save you a few bucks and you can have them within a few minutes of laying down your cash.

Submitted by anonymous (not verified) on Fri, 27/01/12 - 4:35 PM Permalink

I finished my studying at qantm, didn't get a job with it. Learnt so much about animation in my first semester with these guys. www.animschool.com

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Sun, 29/01/12 - 9:28 PM Permalink

Reading some of these replies were making me worried about Qantm which is where I'll be studying Games Design, Melbourne to be exact.

To be honest, I severely lack in artistic/drawing skills but I know this won't be required in more than half of the course. People I've talked to who have graduated from Qantm or still studying at Qantm have given me pretty much the same response which is that they had little or no knowledge prior to starting the course. (I'm talking about Games Design) So it should be no excuse for the students that may fall behind.

It's really up to student to be where they want to be. I know I'll be taking the extra steps in order to at the same pace as to whatever I'm learning/have to learn at Qantm.

Yeah, I hope I'll have a solid time @ QANTM Melbourne :)

Submitted by havster09 (not verified) on Thu, 09/02/12 - 4:07 PM Permalink

Don't worry about your 'lack in artistic/drawing skills' when doing the 3d course at Quantm......the hand drawing portion of the course is just filler because they have nothing else to teach.

Glad to hear you will be taking extra steps.....try to learn subdivisional modeling as soon as possible....the rest becomes easy to learn after that....

But to learn and to master is worlds apart.

Submitted by Duality on Sun, 01/04/12 - 9:16 AM Permalink

I found this post while looking for some reviews of QANTM, I can't be the only one. I am looking at the Brisbane campus as the accelerated program is appealing.

I'm not going to claim I know QANTM. I went to the recent open day at the Brisbane campus before they moved to the slick new building and I'll probably go have a look at the facilities there when I can too. It was a little shabby, but a good atmosphere. Aside from it being so small it wasn't worse than a lot of the older buildings at UQ or QUT. Hopefully that's changed too.

Anyway to get to my point. I've stuffed around (inadvertently) for years with degrees. I've taken multiple courses at QUT and UQ trying to find what the heck it is that I want with my life. In this time, I've seen *exactly* what people are describing at QANTM happening at both of these universities. I've seen it at Carseldine (when QUT ran that), Garden's Point and Kelvin Grove. I've also seen it at St Lucia.

Many classrooms lack proper space or facilities. Some computers are ageing and falling apart. Then again, sometimes you get lucky and get a lab with amazing new facilities. It's just how things are... These institutions are too large to just throw things out once they get a few scuffs or aren't the newest tech available.

Teachers suck sometimes too, everywhere. Tutors are just students, lecturers often seem to see lecturing as a distraction from whatever research they're doing or they're so inept at using technology that lecture materials are rarely up on time/at all, or the classes are a boring waste of time. Heck, as recently as last year I was at UQ and one lecturer was using OHT's with hand drawn illustrations to teach hundreds of people... URGH. I thought I left those behind in high school.

Lectures are often just rehashes of the textbook, with the odd hint about what'll be on the exam thrown in to keep people coming, slides are usually just scans from textbooks with links to 'Blackboard' or other online resources. Administration can be inept (I had them lose seriously important documents for over 9 months! Cool! Lucky I had it date stamped..) and so on and so forth. This stuff is *EVERYWHERE*. And guess what? I did poorly.

But at least I have grown enough to know my failings were my own. I did courses I wasn't passionate about, I got distracted, I procrastinated or I just flat out didn't work at it (World of Warcraft...). And now I am where I am. Other people who took those courses now have jobs in the industry of their choice. Given the poor conditions how is that possible? They pushed through. It's just life guys, even in the larger businesses I've worked for we deal with the same stuff... Inept managers, poor resources and technology, dodgy facilities... It's everywhere.

Again, I don't know. Maybe QANTM is corrupt and evil and they drug your coffee to make you fail while they laugh atop a pile of money. But I am finding some of these criticisms a little naive. I've had an unfortunate history of my own creation but at least I've gotten some perspective from it. My 2c. Thanks for reading.

Submitted by ulthias on Mon, 02/04/12 - 11:44 AM Permalink

I'm not really sure what you're saying there to be honest... If you're lazy you're lazy, if you're hard-working you're hard-working.. Not really a surprise revelation there mate. Your personal (or mine, or anyone's) motivation has NOTHING to do with the quality of the institution that they are in. QANTM's teachers, facilities and materials are lacking, what does it matter if other places are also rubbish??

And for the record, the issue with QANTM isn't that they're evil and try to fail you, it's the exact opposite! QANTM will let you pass even though you should not. I've seen and had this myself, Specifically on one class that I remember, I should have (along with ALL the rest of the class ) received a failed grade on an assignment but we all passed [and before anyone asks, yes I did mention it to the faculty and said that I should have failed, no one listened].

Submitted by Duality on Mon, 02/04/12 - 11:35 PM Permalink

It matters because I am yet to see anyone give a really good example in this thread of an institution that actually met their expectations. I've already said that QUT and UQ aren't much better than QANTM (if at all) from the facilities, why is that irrelevant? Are the facilities better anywhere else? Can we get some legitimate examples? And do these little things really impact you that much when at the end of the day it's your own hours and hard work that'll make a successful student & shining portfolio?

Everyone is complaining about old chairs or whatever, I'm starting to think they were expecting QANTM to be some sort of sci-fi X-Men style school for the gifted with no expense spared. Where is this magical place I can go to with supercomputers for every student, individual one on one teaching with legends in their fields, etc...???? Uni doesn't have it, QANTM doesn't have it, but everyone's upset they didn't get it. And also... Did nobody attend an open day before they signed up? These things should've been readily apparent.

Plus QANTM is even easier to get into than university, so if anything I'd expect it to be shabbier. There's that price argument but they're upfront about the cost, it's a short degree and the government artificially brings down other courses in many cases. So that's kind of a moot point to me, if it didn't look like good value going in then I don't know why anyone signed up in the first place.

To me this whole thread just seems like people complaining about higher education. It is what it is... Use the time to network and work hard at getting the 'paper' to complement your skills. O_o

Submitted by ulthias on Tue, 03/04/12 - 3:20 PM Permalink

huh? This thread is called "QANTM Reviews" not "Reviews of Higher Education Facilities" if you want to debate the merits or drawbacks of all universities you should create a new thread for it. Barring that, accept the fact that the thread is about QANTM, not to mention proves that QANTM (specifically in Sydney but most likely everywhere) is a sham and get on with your life...

P.S.
If you read through the thread itself you'll actually see that there are some very severe arguments against QANTM's curriculum and teaching experience (mainly, the curriculum doesn't cover basic programming skills and that Sydney's teacher comes from a background of slot machines NOT actual games and has on numerous occasions acted unprofessionally in his capacity as a teacher), I don't know about chairs nor do I care.