Life Changing or Career Building?

When i was at college i was given a lecture on how you can basically fail college and still get into university with unconditional offers based on your portfolio. It was about how your skills and abilities can sometimes over rule qualifications and that if you are good at what you do, and have a shit hot portfolio to prove it, you dont really need qualifications to say your good, your work does it for you. But with some game companies wanting the exact opposite it comes down to which one gets you places in life, the grades of the highly trained programmer or the creative individuals portfolio?

Im my opinion i think the portfolio is the more important of the two, the biggest example to back me up here is this. Your at a job interview and the person sat next to you after the same job has left uni with the exact same grades as you but theres only one job available...bam...thats grades getting you the job go out the window because yous are both even, the only way to win this one is with your portfolio.

Im a strong believer in the portfolio because of the fact its personal to you, unlike grades which can be as identical as the person next to you portfolios are different. I left college with a final grade of MMM, which is the same grade as like....about 10,000 other students? But i bet none of them had my portfolio and vice versa. Their completely unique to you and show your work and your work only. They can be tweaked to show off your strong points and they can be used to give the employers what they want, bonus points to you. Company vary as much as the weather does these days, which each company making completely different kind of games to one another. So having a portfolio containing the kind of work they do in it will help twist their arm more than a grade ever will i think. So if you want to work for microsoft on the next gears of war, dont go putting your my little pony models models in your portfolio.

But specializing in one area to satisfy someone can be a bit dangerous. Specializing in one area can leave you weak in another, while getting good at everything can turn you into the handy man of gaming...good at everything, but not brilliant at one thing, and the word mediocre doesnt seem to get you anywhere in this industry. Also ive heard of universities having 'house styles' where all the students come out with the same kind of stuff in their portfolios. So do universities need to teach it all and give it all to students?

Which leads to the question how can education meet these opposing views and yet provide a valid and fulfilling experience to students? Well when it comes to the good experience university living provides that anyways, afterall getting drunk and pursuing women becomes second nature in this kind of habitat, and who doesnt enjoy that? So its what can students learn from education that should be the question.

Well I think its down to the student really to specialize and learn about what they are passionate about and seek in life. Uni cant 'teach it all' to a student so its up to them to develop the style that suits them so they can get a job they want. Uni is a stepping stone to teach them their A,B,C's in 3ds max and visual design etc etc, Giving the students the tools that they need to get the job done. The rest is just motivation and passion on the students behalf.