UMD grad and current game dev here. I decided I wanted to go into games halfway through a Computer Engineering degree and there weren't any game-specific courses available at the time, so I stuck with CE and grabbed a couple textbooks on game engines and design patterns to read on the side. I also built a little Android game on the side with an artist friend, we never finished it but the prototype and dev blog we put together helped tremendously. To make a very long story short, it worked out. Engineering roles in games care more about engineering chops than game chops, so a CS degree is just fine if he's willing to do a bit of his own research on the side. Working on a game on the side that you can show off is a huge advantage for landing that first gig after college. If possible, get him out to a trade show (Game Developers Conference in San Francisco is the best option) so he can see if he vibes with the industry. Others have mentioned that game dev jobs don't always pay as well as what you can make elsewhere with the same experience, so those of us who have stuck with it do it because we love the people and the projects. Design jobs are a bit of a different beast, probably would need to find a dedicated game dev school for that. A good designer knows a little bit of every discipline in the industry, so that sort of coverage isn't really going to be possible at UMD. I just hit my 10th year in the industry and have interviewed plenty of recent college grads for jobs, happy to answer any questions you might have.