As in past years, UC Santa Cruz is featured on Princeton Review's 2018 lists for top undergraduate and graduate programs in game design.
The game design programs at UC Santa Cruz were named among the top programs in the country by the Princeton Review, an education services company. The undergraduate and graduate programs at UC Santa Cruz were both ranked in the top 25 in the company's lists for 2018 of the best undergraduate and graduate schools for students to study game design and launch a career in the game industry.
UC Santa Cruz ranked 13th on the Princeton Review's list of the "Top 25" graduate schools and 17th on the list of the "Top 50" undergraduate programs. The full lists are posted at Top Game Design Schools 2018. The web site also provides information on the Princeton Review's methodology for the rankings and profiles of the schools.
UCSC offers a broad range of programs in computer game design. The Baskin School of Engineering established the first undergraduate major in computer game design in the UC system in 2006. In addition to B.S. and B.A. degrees in game design, the campus also has three graduate programs with an emphasis on games: the professional M.S. in games and playable media; the Ph.D. or M.S. in computational media; and the M.F.A. in digital arts and new media in the Arts Division.
The Art & Design: Games & Playable Media B.A. is a highly collaborative and uniquely interdisciplinary degree, designed to give students a strong foundation in both art and technology. The Digital Arts and New Media (DANM) two-year M.F.A. program gives students the opportunity to collaborate with faculty and contribute to digital media arts research.
Art Division faculty mentors include Professor Robin Hunicke, renowned video game designer and producer and director of Arts & Design: Games & Playable Media; Professor Elizabeth Swensen, game designer whose research focuses on metacognitive development outcomes and strategy-based learning in games; and Professor Susana Ruiz whose teaching and research traverses the intersections of cinema, games, art, ethics, and activism.
The Princeton Review based its rankings on a survey it conducted in 2017 of 150 institutions offering game design coursework or degrees in the United States, Canada, and some countries abroad.
For more information about the game design programs at UC Santa Cruz, visit the web sites for the Department of Computational Media, and the Arts Division's Digital Arts and New Media, and Art & Design: Games & Playable Media.
- by Tim Stephens (with additional Arts Division details added by Maureen Harrison)
Originally posted: 03/14/2018