[game_edu] It's an interdisciplinary field

[deb s]

A middle ground is to create an interdisciplinary degree program that
isn't it's own new department, but also isn't housed in just one
department.  That's what we did at Montgomery College (MD) with our
web development degrees and later with our gaming degrees.  Both pull
classes from CS, CG, and many other departments.  At one point we even
had some classes under an interdisciplinary course code designator (IS
for "Interdisciplinary Studies", but that got complicated and wasn't
necessary).  The IGDA framework was very helpful to us when we were
designing the program.

Also, there was a post a while back about community colleges and how
to fit a gaming degree into a "two year" program.  At MC, we don't
think of it as a two year program.  We have partnerships with upper
level institutions (like U of Baltimore) for our students to transfer
easily into their programs, so we think of our gaming degree as the
first two years of a four year degree.  We have three tracks
(programming, art & animation, design & production) and provide
foundation level courses in 3D, programming, level design, and other
topics depending on the track chosen.  We make a point of advising
students that most employers are looking for at least a four year
degree (and in the case of more advanced programming careers, a
masters or higher), and that they should plan on transferring to get a
bachelors after completing the MC program.  I think many community
college programs are looked at as just two years of tech skill
training (not that there is anything wrong with that), but our program
is not like that.

Finally, just like game dev, designing a game dev program is an
iterative process.  It's not always possible to get it perfect the
first time.  And as more and more students join the program, you can
offer more specialized and interesting classes and develop and refine
degree tracks, etc.

Deb
www.studygaming.com

On Mon, Mar 2, 2009 at 10:25 AM, Ian Schreiber <ai864 at yahoo.com> wrote:

> > The catch is this: new departments don't spring fully-formed into being out

> of nothing. They have to start in some other department, then split into

> their own in time.