CSC News

NC State Undergraduate Game Design Program Ranked Among the Nation's Top 25

The Princeton Review recently released its annual list of “Top 50 Undergraduate Schools to Study Game Design for 2019.” This year, NC State ranked 23^rd overall.

The list was created based on data collected in its 2018 survey of administrators at 150 institutions in the U.S., Canada and abroad that offer game design courses, majors or degree programs.

This year’s Princeton Review’s ranking for its “Top Schools for Game Design” is its ninth annual ranking released since 2010. In 2013, The Princeton Review joined PC Gamer, a monthly magazine published by Future plc, as its annual reporting partner on this project.

More than 40 data points were analyzed in the rankings using a survey evaluating attributes such as schools’ courses, facilities, graduates’ starting salaries and professional achievements. The Princeton Review posts information about its methodology for its game design school rankings here.

Dr. David Roberts, Associate Professor of Computer Science, views the ranking as a large step forward for the program itself.

“The Princeton Review methodology takes a broad view of game design as a discipline, so for our program, which is heavily focused on the development of video games and enabling technologies, to earn this recognition is especially exciting.” Says Dr. Roberts.

Dr. Arnav Jhala, associate professor of computer science and co-director of the Digital Games Research Initiative, credits the ranking due to additions to the game design program and recent interdisciplinary collaborations.

“Last year we offered a couple of additional Visual Narrative classes focused on Virtual Reality which strengthened our project courses,” Says Dr. Jhala, “It is also partly due to our collaboration with College of Design on the Visual Narrative courses that are game themed.”

The collaboration between the College of Design and the Computer Science Department began in 1995 with the first co-taught classes between Dr. James Lester, distinguished professor of computer science and Patrick FitzGerald, associate professor of art and design. Throughout the years, the collaboration has grown and developed including the establishment of the IntelliMedia Group. The group, housed in the Computer Science department, works to incorporate design and computer science elements to cater to the twenty-first century learning and teaching demands for a high-impact adaptive learning environment.

Recently, Dr. Jhala from Computer Science and Todd Berreth from Design have joined forces to further develop the interdisciplinary collaboration.

FitzGerald has seen first-hand the exciting synergy created between the disciplines which has resulted in various courses, collaborations and grants.

“The College of Design is excited for future collaborations, potential shared courses and potential graduate degrees in game design between CSC and the Department of Art and Design in the College of Design.” Says FitzGerald.

~scanlon~