[game_edu] Components of a New Masters Program

[Steve Farrer]

The Game Education Summit at DigiPen on June 22/23 features the following session:

Components of a new Master Program: Incubator, Entrepreneurship, Game Studio Partnerships and Hitting the Ground Running
Building upon the success of the undergraduate games program, University of Utah started a Masters program with the input and partnership of its nearby game companies (EA, Disney Interactive, etc.) in Salt Lake City. In its pilot year, getting the components (Arts, Game Design, Programming) right was critical; as well as doing the research, creating space, obtaining seed funding, implementing SCRUM, involving the game studios, integrating 3 tracks (Arts, Design, Programming) and completing games!
Expanding from undergraduate to a new graduate games program; it's a complete scale change. It isn't about offering classes anymore; it is about become an incubator, implementing self-responsibility for learning, encouraging entrepreneurship, partnering with local game studios (EA, Disney etc.), getting SCRUM right, and keeping the upper administration on-board. This presentation includes what we have found that works and what is still a work in progress. University of Utah, long known for its pioneering of graphics in computer science, has partnered with the local games studios to strengthen the video gaming industry in Salt Lake City. This presentation focuses on the Masters program's pilot year in creating a competitive program to help accomplish this goal.
By researching successful programs the university identified the tracks (Arts, Development/Design, Computer Science) that the industry seeks and that students are most interested. This presentation includes the challenges in asking our students to work together across disciplines while learning the skills needed, and working through real-world challenges for getting games completed that people want to play. The key was pushing them into the deep end with rapid prototyping, mixing up the teams each times, and having the local game industry both advise and teach in our courses so the students were getting the skills that counted.

Visit www.gameeducationsummit.com<http://www.gameeducationsummit.com> for full program details and use code GES9856 to get a $49 discount off registration.

Regards

Steve Farrer
Phone: 512 415 8300
Fax: 512 233 2771

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://seven.pairlist.net/pipermail/game_edu/attachments/20110511/fb788317/attachment.html>