Can i move to USA with my degree?

You can marry me. :flowerforyou:

Haha! I realise marriage is an option but I am only a young 19 and not really looking for that quite yet! I have travelled to the US a lot and love it there compared to Scotland.

Dude, really? I wouldn't leave Scotland for America xD I enjoy free health care too much.

if i were thinking of moving out...and i am in europe like you i would go to der deutschland. Much better. You won't find a better country than germany.

Where I use to work we had an engineer who was able to be here in the US because they sponsered him. Start looking for companies here in the US. Not sure how it is done though. I have a friend who designs games for XBOX. Unfortunately his company just closed. Good Luck to you!

The US is in a recession and is borderline a Puritanical Theocracy (especially if a certain candidate should become President). We have no free health care. The middle class is getting poorer and the wealthiest are getting richer at their expense. Frankly, I think there may well be a revolution in the next few years if things don't change.

We lived in Germany for 1 1/2 years. We'd go back in a heartbeat. The US used to be the land of the free and the land of opportunity. It's not anymore. Politicians are gradually chipping away at the freedoms and opportunity only really exists if you are born with it or marry into it. It's a lot dirtier too. Germany was so clean we were absolutaly amazed. Then we toured through Europe and unless we were in old Eastern Block countries it was always cleaner than anywhere we'd ever been stateside (and that's most of the states) It's not just trash and litter it's air and water quality too.

On the plus side, gas is cheaper (although not by a whole lot anymore and we don't get free healthcare because of the cost) and you can get a lot more house for a lot less money, especially now that we've had the housing market collapse.

What exactly is it that you liked about the US so much? Where have you been?

You're crazy Sir. I'd move to Canada before I moved to the States. Though, this opinion is biased as I'm Canadian.

Start shopping around for employment based in the US, and work yourself into a unique and marketable skillset so you stand out from the crowd. Many American employers are hiring from overseas now for skilled positions that are hard to find in the US.

If that's not possible, then I would consider trying to go to graduate studies here so you can make some connections and weasel your way into a job.

^^^ This !

Graduates often obtain work at a US company (specially of they worked as Interns while finishing their schooling)

yea, exactly this.
you scout out and basically get a job before you come over here.. similar to how I would apply for a job in another state and move there if I get it... alot of email, phone, etc.. and maybe a meeting or two face to face first.. maybe not.

Firstly, I think you're a bit mad too. The US seems great when you're on holiday, but trust me, living there is a completely different game. No healthcare, and horrible working conditions - nowhere near as much holiday as UK, longer hours, easier to just sack employees) are the biggest two things. As for cost, it's cheap to a tourist who earns £'s converts them to $'s and makes holiday type purchases, but in reality actually living there is really not any cheaper, fuel seems cheaper, but you do lots of miles, health insurance (unless you have an awesome employer and even then you have copays and deductables) and things like property taxes are way higher than in the UK.

Also you imagine it to be a similar culture because of the language, but in reality it is not at all. Holidaying there and living there are definitely completely different experiences.

How do I know this, I'm a Brit, and I have done it.

My other thought is that in the games industry, the UK is actually a fairly big player, so moving may not necessarily be the best thing.

Ignoring the above, if you want to do it, you realistically have a few choices:

H1B - After you finish school find an employee who will sponsor you. The requirements for this are a 4 year degree or equivalent experience, so you meet the criteria, however getting an employee to sponsor is the hard bit. The best way to do this will be through networking, but basically think of it this way - Why would the employee hire you, when it will cost them somewhere between $10-$20k to sponsor the visa (for a H1B they have to pay, so you can't do this for them). If there people who can already do what you do who are in the US, you will need a niche. In the meantime, work on this niche.

L1 A\B - Get a job with a company that has a presence in the UK\US then after a year, you will be able to get an L1 A\B visa to transfer if you can get in a position where the company will do that.

F1 \ Student - After your degree, do postgrad studying in the US. This will give you a chance to network, but you will be very limited in what work you can do, and you have to show you have the funds for schooling up front. This will be very expensive (think tens of thousands of $'s ).

K1 - Marry a US girl. Only do this if you actually fall in love with the right person, don't commit immigration fraud.

Realistically, thats pretty much it, unless you have loads of money that you can afford to lose ($250k+) and would be willing to set up your own US business.

It's not a particularly easy country to get into, but if you work at it, you can get there. If you have any questions about any of this or whatever, feel free to ask and I will happily share my experiences.

There is a lot of demand for software developers in the USA. When you say your degree is "computer game development", are you saying that you write code to develop games? If so, your skill set is valuable and you could even move on to other types of software product development even if you don't end up developing games here. I know nothing about the visa process though, so can't help you there.

as a software developer, i can agree with this.

Heres the hard truth.
If you have a useful skill.. you can get a good job.
The largest problem the US has, is a lot of people here have no skill. They cant build anything. They cant fix anything. They cant really DO anything.
Its been beat into their heads that they need some degree, so they get a degree, but they still dont have any marketable skill.

If you can write software well, I guarantee you can get a job. It may not be writing games, but you can get a good job here and then look for a better one.
Even during the worst part of this "recession", I still got at least 2 calls from headhunters a month with job offers, and often more then that.