Operating a computer science game degree program

Authors:
Michael Zyda;Victor Lacour;Chris Swain
Affiliations:
USC GamePipe Laboratory, Los Angeles, CA;USC GamePipe Laboratory, Los Angeles, CA;USC EA Game Innovation Lab, Los Angeles, CA
Venue:
GDCSE '08 Proceedings of the 3rd international conference on Game development in computer science education
Year:
2008

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Abstract

The USC Department of Computer Science is in its second year of operating its BS in Computer Science (Games) and MS in Computer Science (Game Development) degree programs. We have developed an interesting educational architecture inside of that degree program that allows the students to become strong game developers, strong computer scientists, strong programmers, strong systems developers, and facile with working in cross-disciplinary, collaborative groups. We believe that educating students in this fashion strengthens our department's ability to do cutting edge research in computer science as well as provide great graduates for the game industry. In this paper, we share our lessons learned, some detail on our courses and processes, as well as detail on our impact on recruitment and retention for the Computer Science undergraduate degree program.