Focus on Northeastern University

I just had a great conversation with Terrence Masson at Northeastern University in Boston.

He is the Director of the Creative Industries Program and he runs a really innovative program with lots of room to adapt to the constantly changing technology of the game industry.

As a way to maintain an adaptive and flexible program. The game design program does not mandate that specific tools are used, instead the instructors are able to change the tools they use in their classes on the fly to keep up with rapidly changing technology.

Northeastern is innovative in that they require their students to spend January - June of their 3rd and 4th year at university in paid internships. During this time the students work in their chosen field and are paid a salary and while this is a required part of their education they don't pay tuition for this period of time.

The Game Design Program students are able to work in the game industry and will leave the program with a valuable understanding of what it means to be a part of a team.

Students in the Game Design program all have combined majors so they are focusing on Game Design and another discipline, such as computer science, digital art, music technology.... While the students are each learning to specialize in their area of focus they are also brought together with other game design majors in a variety of team-based project classes and the two semester capstone class for their last year so they are able to effectively interact with the vast variety of specialized people that make up a game team.

Notheastern will graduate their first game design class in 2013 and they will be adding a graduate program in 2013.