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In the world of AI, a video game degree wouldn’t be something new. US universities are contemplating the possibility of offering such degrees that would let students complete majors in video games or esports.
The University of Delaware is one of the many colleges and universities that are open to offering new programs to embrace degrees in this multi-billion dollar field along with esports.
(Also read: Columbia University Students Turned Hostile Towards The Jewish Students)
The story of Stephanie Gomez-Sanchez
Stephanie Gomez-Sanchez is one of those shining students at the said university who has aspirations and ambitions regarding her video game degree. She said she wanted to change the view of US politicians in their ongoing debate on immigrants by creating video game characters that would resemble her Mexican-American family.
The 23-year-old wants to tell the world that they are not ‘rapists’, as Donald Trump once said when he was talking about immigrants in the United States. She wants to turn her childhood love for video games into something useful for the US society, for which the University of Delaware is ready to help.
University’s first quota of video game degree
The university just rolled out its first quota including around two dozen students who earned their video game degree. Such degrees would also offer specialties in artificial intelligence, as early in high school years for American students which is expected to interest a great number of Gen-Z students.
The university also wants to handle the issue of the ever-dwindling population in colleges and universities in the country who hardly complete their majors. They believe that a shrinking pool of students might be due to the unavailability of degree subjects of their interest.
Phillip Penix-Tadsen’s views
The chairperson of the game studies and esports program at the University of Delaware, Phillip Penix-Tadsen is a video game lover and enjoys teaching it to his students. He was not a video game teacher at first but wrote a book in 2016 “Cultural Code: Video Games and Latin America”.
Alter, the university interpreted it as a signal for the introduction of the new program. Penix Tadsen said, “It was like there had been a cultural change. Every university member had heard of esports. That seemed to be a kind of buzzword”.
With the evolution of technology each coming day, the demands of new generations are changing, even in education. The same phenomenon is realized by the University of Texas at San Antonio this fall where a bachelor’s degree in ‘digital media influencing’ is now offered for the first time.
Chad Mahood’s views
An associate professor of the degree program, Chad Mahood, said that the new program would support students in better understanding the dynamics of social media and would help them and the collaborating businesses for the creation of an online brand in the future.
He said, “That influencer that you just saw on TikTok, they have an intuitive sense of this, and that’s why they’re doing well. If you don’t have that intuitive sense, we will help you”.
Future direction of the US universities with new programs
US universities have come to know that students want degrees that provide the best ‘return on investment’. The students of today have a greater concern for the distinct ways schools and colleges could help them achieve that.
With college and university costs soaring high, the students have to work part-time alongside their degrees to meet the expenses. They have become increasingly stressed about the rising stakes in their education that later leaves them unprepared and sometimes, unemployed for six months or longer.
The arguments on how much a college degree should be training students for skills and specific jobs have been there from day one of every university in the world, said Donald Hossler, Indiana University Bloomington’s ex-vice chancellor of student enrollment services.
He further added that he is a staunch believer in liberal arts and universities are not thinking much about it. If students’ interests are changing then their enrolment preferences are too. He stressed that hiring the right and qualified faculty for teaching and relevant resources need to be arranged fast for the said purpose.
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