A New Major --- A New Opportunity

Videogames and virtual worlds are big business. You can play games on your cellphone. Virtual worlds can be embedded on your website. More money is being spent by developers and by players than ever before.

The Roy H. Park School will soon be offering a new major to give studentst opportunities to develop skills needed by the developing industry.

We're known for our programs in video production and cinema. You might have heard of ICTV, our student run television station, the oldest in the country. Perhaps you've heard of our student run radio stations, one of which was voted the #5 college radtion station in the country by Princeton Review in 2008.

So why a videogame design and immersive media major? Because many of the same skills used on television and film production are also needed by the game industry. And the television and film industries are making major moves into game production.

This portal was established to provide information to prospective students and current students. Click on the Classes tab to find information on the clases required for our major, information about classes being offered this semester, and see examples of games and projects made by students. There will be more to see of course as the program gets underway. Click on the LInks tab to see the collection of links about the game industry - career guides, game developer blogs, magazines, etc - that we're putting together. The FAQ tab provides answers to the questions we've gotten so far; send in your questions and we'll put the answers here. We've set up a blog; it's under the News tab at the top of the screen. There you'll find announcements about upcoming speakers, details from classes, and calls for volunteers to help work on game building student groups.

It is a BFA degree because we concentrate not just on the computer programming side (that would be a BS degree), not just on analysis (that would be a BA degree), but on a mix of the arts and sciences and production. Students interested in the new Game Design and Immersive Media Degree will apply to the television-radio department in the Park School.

The new major was covered in the Ithacan, the school paper. Click here to read the story online.