Hi all!
I start by saying that this post is maybe premature but these questions have been puzzling me a lot lately, so I prefer to ask now.
My life-goal is to become a graphics programmer in games industry, but before jump to the question let me post a short bio to frame my situation.
I've completed my undergrad studies in computer science in Italy obtaining the highest mark. However, during I don't feel like I've programmed a lot and I barely touched graphics. For thesis I've finally done something implementing a very simple mesh viewer with phong shading in OpenGL and WebGL + an .obj to JSON converter. So actually not much.
I'm now finishing an MSc at UCL in UK. While this master is computer graphics and imaging related (Image Processing, Virtual Environment, Computational Photography, Geometry Processing, Computer Graphics are most relevant module), I feel like the rendering part wasn't that relevant, just pretty basic stuff, at least in practice. On the Image processing side I've done way more, but I'm not sure if/how this will help me in my life goal (that's actually question 1: will it? ) and everything was implemented in MATLAB. Every coursework so far has gone very good in markings but due to the completely different system here I'm not sure I will be that good in exams.
Unfortunately during my undergrads years I didn't have the ideas clear enough to start some side-project by my own and now here I definitely don't have the time to start one before the uni finishes.
Giving this what I've in my hands are just some coursework and what will be my final thesis (screen space subsurface scattering implementation for skin rendering). On a theoretical side for rendering I feel that I have some knowledge although not that complete on an intermediate-advanced level.
I tend to have the Imposter Syndrome but in this case I really feel inadequate to start looking for a job. Now, I don't really mind start my working experience with an internship, but even so I don't think I've enough to show or I'm good enough. So this lead to my central question:
Wanting to be a graphics programmer what is in your opinion the best path to follow in my situation?
- Starting the search for an internship straight after the graduation. As material to show use just the courseworks and the final thesis (which hopefully will be good in terms of result and not that basic)
- Stop for a while and produce something by myself before trying to apply for job positions. I think this is the only way possible for me, but in this case what you think is a good project to start that will be well appreciated by a possible employer?
Thank you very much and sorry for the long post :)