Career-decision help needed

Hi all,

I am currently enrolled as a Computer Science Graduate student at one of the premier engineering schools at US. Parts of reason I wanted to attend a good school were to revive my interest in programming, gaming and get a good job (and earn some money atleast to feed my family when and if I have one). (yes! I AM serious).

What I am trying to learn is various options I have before I enroll for Spring semester. First and foremost, I want to remain and actively remain in programming. This semester, I enrolled in Multimedia systems and Software Architecture. I actually liked Multimedia systems to some extent as it involved learning, understanding and implementing various curves of digital systems, like data compression, sampling, quantization, reading various file formats etc. and made us write softwares which I never thought I could ever learn in my life.

So I was taking multimedia systems into my consideration for serious career path.

Others that I decided on:

1) Multimedia, like I discussed before.

2) Compiler designing. Involves a lot of programming skills, understanding of systems and problem-solving skills.

3) Assembly programming. Did some of it during my under-grad engineering course and kinda loved it, but I might not take it seriously because of this being non-standard course for a CS guy. I believe, companies/employers will give preference to Electrical/Electronics professional and they certainly, will have an edge over me. Though, I have not marked it out yet, just pushed it to the bottom of list.

I have only come up with these three, but would like to consider more, if there are any.

My interest mainly lies in Mathematics (applied Maths), after current semester, Physics and Graphics and likes to solve puzzles.

What other career options do I have? I am much more inclined towards Multimedia sort of things now, but am not really sure as to what career options I have after completing grad course. (Looking for job anywhere, not just India, my national country)

I have nearly 4 years of experience with various MS technologies, mainly in .Net (C#, VB), ASP.Net, MS SQL Server 2005/2000, SSAS 2005, SSRS 2005, SSIS 2005, XML/XSL, HTML/CSS/JS, Web Services, WCF/WPF (to some extent), did some Java here at university, and planning to go ahead with it.

Looking ahead for some thoughtful and insightful replies.

Thank you for your time.

If you like Mathmatics, Physics, Graphics, and Programming, I think a career in 3D Digital Effects might be for you. Meaning you would be in charge of developing and desiging 3D effects for the movie industry. Things like particle simulations, physics simulations, agents (crowd effects and ai), and animation rigs and digital assets. You would be applying everything you have an interest in with that.

To say nothing of all of the 3D possibilities in the game programming industry (which you mentioned and interest in.)

Agreed, game studios are always looking for good 3D modelers and animators. They tend to be in somewhat short supply.