[game_edu] "Identifying a Good Game School"

[Jose P. Zagal]

Hi Ian,

Thanks for taking the time to respond to my message.


> Jose, I actually agree with most of your points, which means I've failed

> to write the article clearly.


Good! Er..or not? Well, I'm glad that we don't fundamentally disagree. I 
guess that's the good part. :-)



>  >1. Students know what's best for their education.

>

> It's a subtle line, but I would say the main point is not that students

> need to know what's best (else, they would teach themselves and eschew

> school altogether), but rather that students should know what their own

> goals are: what do they expect to get out of school? If they don't know

> why they're going to school, they are probably not going to choose one

> that suits their specific needs.


I'm all in favor of helping students figure out what they want to do 
with their lives after highschool. However I think the way the question 
we ask students is asked makes all the difference in the world. It's not 
the same to ask "What do you want to get out of your college education?" 
as "What do you want to work in?" or "What kind of person do you want to 
be?". Each of these questions leads to a different answer and primes 
someone to view the question from a different perspective 
(job/career/personal identity, respectively). This is related to my 
point 4 below.



> Granted, a lot of students don't know what they want (I certainly didn't

> when I was 16). But as long as they KNOW they don't know, there are

> still strategies that will help them to take the next step of figuring

> out a goal.


And a lot of times, they think they know, but they're wrong (or they 
change their mind otherwise, or they discover something new that wasn't 
on their radar at all). This happens a lot in game programs where 
students come in with certain pre-conceived notions about what a games 
education is or, more dangereously, what it should be. 
(http://abstrusegoose.com/206 for a humorous take on this)



>  >2. Research-focused institutions have poor teaching.

>

> I think that's taking the article to perhaps a further extreme than I'd

> prefer. What we said is that if the majority of P&T decisions focus on

> research, grants and publications, then those faculty are probably going

> to concentrate in those areas -- that is what the system is driving them

> to do!


Sure. But this unrelated to the quality of teaching. Just because your 
primary focus is one thing doesn't imply that other things will be 
underserved.


> I would actually say the same of teaching-focused institutions. In some

> so-called "teaching" schools, teachers don't even sit in each other's

> classes, and P&T is decided based primarily on number of hours taught

> (regardless of quality). I've heard from instructors who either had no

> faculty contact, or maybe a single hour late in the term. I understand

> that sitting on a 40-hour class takes time, but honestly, how much can

> you tell about someone's teaching ability if you don't?

>

> I wouldn't say that either type of school is "better" at teaching, but

> rather that the systems in place are going to cause certain behavior,

> and being aware of those systems gives an indication of how the majority

> of faculty are going to act in the classroom.


Ok, but that's not what was implied. You said: "At some universities the 
"publish or perish" syndrome means perhaps 70% of the instructor's 
"credit" or compensation comes from research, so teaching is definitely 
secondary and suffers for it."  You're not saying it may suffer, you're 
saying it DOES suffer.


>  >3. Research-focused institutions (or "career academics"), have no impact

>  >or relation to the game industry.

>

> This one, I'm not sure where in the article you were looking. I

> distinctly remember writing that a diverse mix of faculty (some who do

> primarily research, some who come from industry) can make for a

> wonderful ecosystem. There is merely a danger if the department is too

> homogenous -- too many researchers may not understand the issues

> relevant to the students that just want to graduate and get a job in

> industry, while too many fresh-from-industry faculty run the risk of

> making the school ONLY relevant to industry and not teaching the broader

> picture.



It's implied in the points above. In particular the idea that "Ideally, 
almost all classes will be taught by full time instructors." (ie, 
faculty that aren't "career academics").

However, to get back to my original point, the article is 
teaching-centric, ignoring all the other reasons why you should go to 
university that don't have to do with the courses you'll take and the 
jobs you may get afterward.


>

>

>  >4. The goal of a university education is to get a job.

>

> Here I would say, that is clearly not the goal of the university, but we

> are kidding ourselves if we don't think it is the goal of many (but not

> all) of our students. And for those students who do have this as a goal,

> is it shortsighted to say that they should choose a school that stands a

> good chance of helping them reach that goal?


Well yes. We should be telling them not to focus on "getting a job" or 
"what job do you want to do?". If we think that students are asking the 
wrong questions, we should help them ask the right ones, rather than 
simply give them answers to what they ask because that's what they're 
asking.


>  >5. Entrepreneurship is what you do when you can't get a job.

>  >(and a university education can't prepare you for entrepreneurship)

>

> I think what we said is that entrepreneurship is all fine and good, but

> that if there is a persistent pattern where MOST graduates start their

> own companies, it could be a signal that they are trying and failing to

> get hired. I have heard of schools that specifically encourage their

> jobless graduates to start companies so that the school can boast a

> higher percentage of graduates who got "industry jobs". While the

> practice is sketchy, it happens, and students deserve to be warned in

> advance.


I think you only mentioned entrepreneurship in the context of not 
finding a job. In fact, entrepreneurship is a great example of a non job 
focused approach to a college education. (and is something we should 
definitely encourage!)



>  >6. If it isn't obviously related to games, it's useless to a games

> education.

>

> If I did imply that, then I really messed up. Of the classes that I

> think game designers should take in school, more than half have nothing

> to do with games (overtly).


Glad to see we agree! This caught my eye when you described issues with 
course descriptions and their content. One of the main challenges I've 
found in my research on games education is in helping students broaden 
their perspectives beyond the videogames they are familiar with first to 
other types of games, then to other non-videogames, and also to other 
media. Thus, a course titled "Nonlinear Storytelling" makes complete 
sense even if games are only discussed in 1/3 of the course!


>

>

> At any rate, wanted to clarify where I stand on these issues, if nothing

> else.


Once again, I appreciate the time you've taken to respond to my message!

-- 
José P. Zagal
Assistant Professor
College of Computing and Digital Media
DePaul University

http://www.ludoliteracy.com/

http://facsrv.cs.depaul.edu/~jzagal