The International Student Blog

If you’re one of the many international students considering turning their love of video games into a career by deciding to study video game development in the US, there are a series of preliminary questions to which you ought to find answers first. One of the most frequently asked and most fundamental questions is: “What is video game development and what sorts of courses would a student take while pursuing this degree?” We will provide a brief overview of the discipline of video game development, as well as a list of common courses required by most video game development programs in the United States.

So, what is video game development? Video game development is a cross discipline, drawing from elements of game production and game design that will typically focus on coordinating and overseeing the multiple aspects of the production process of creating a video game. The task of the video game developer is to coordinate, assist and lead the development team through the process of turning a video game idea into reality. Many video game development programs still put focus on providing a robust foundation in computer programming and software engineering to complement the education in the production aspects of game development.

International students who decide to study video game development will take a mixture of mathematics, computer science, natural science, leadership, and interpersonal communication courses. The following is a list of common requisite courses in a video game development degree:

• Programming I, II, III
• Software architecture
• Software engineering I, II, III
• Image rendering
• Engine development
• Game rules
• 3D content creation
• Public speaking
• Interpersonal communication
• Linear algebra
• Trigonometry and calculus
• Physics
• Structure of game design
• Structure of game production
• Game pre-production
• Game networking
• Data structures
• Artificial intelligence

Though the particular name of each of these courses will vary depending on the particular institution an international student chooses to study at, the material they cover, representing the core knowledge and skills learned when individuals study game development, is fairly uniform across institutions in the United States.

If these courses look like they would be of interest to you, studying video game development might be the career path for you.

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 25th, 2013 at 7:30 am and is filed under International Student, International Student Study Section, Study in the USA. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Written by Bryanna Davis

Bryanna joined EIC in 2011 after returning to the United States from teaching English in China. Her interest in international education, sparked initially by her own study abroad experience in Wales, led her to the company. Bryanna is originally from Missouri and is a graduate from the University of Central Missouri.

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