{"id":66649,"date":"2020-06-26T09:01:02","date_gmt":"2020-06-26T13:01:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/?p=66649"},"modified":"2020-06-26T11:40:56","modified_gmt":"2020-06-26T15:40:56","slug":"first-cohort-graduates-from-brock-niagara-college-game-program","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/2020\/06\/first-cohort-graduates-from-brock-niagara-college-game-program\/","title":{"rendered":"First cohort graduates from Brock-Niagara College GAME program"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brock University\u2019s first cohort of GAME students did one last \u2018first\u2019 together last week: graduate.<\/p>\n

Thirty-two students have graduated from the program with a Brock bachelor of arts in Game Design or bachelor of science in Game Programming and a Niagara College diploma in Game Development-Advanced.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe share so much with both schools that it does really feel that we pulled seven years of school into four,\u201d says Kyle Jones, who will be graduating with a bachelor of science in Game Programming.<\/p>\n

The program has included a packed schedule of courses and projects at both institutions. Students worked in teams on two major capstone projects: one at Niagara College in year three and one at Brock in year four.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese projects give so much hands-on experience that they are by far the most valuable portion of the course,\u201d says Jones. His third-year team, Magehem, was invited to attend Oculus\u2019 international conference OC6 in California on the strength of their virtual reality (VR) game.<\/p>\n

\u201cPersonally, going to Oculus Connect was one of the most amazing things I\u2019ve done, and I wouldn\u2019t have had that opportunity to do it without the GAME program,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Agusia Krzywinksa (centre), was part of the Bad Manors team that won first place in best mobile\/networking game at the 2019 Level Up Showcase in Toronto. Krzywinksa and teammates Matthew Newton and Martin Boote are part of the first cohort to graduate from the join Brock University-Niagara College Game program.<\/p><\/div>\n

Agusia Krzywinska, who is graduating with a bachelor of science in Game Programming, was part of the award-winning Bad Manors team. That group of students won first place in best mobile\/networking game and second place in best art at the 2019 provincial student showcase, Level Up, where they showed their game off to peers in the industry as well as representatives of UbiSoft, Game Loft, Microsoft, Uken, Zinga, AMD and Unity.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt felt good to have my team win awards in Toronto for a game we spent eight months on, especially with the enjoyment of watching people play,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

While the program is a lot of work, the students set a supportive, congenial atmosphere. Courses focus on group work and collaboration with multiple disciplines to prepare students for work in the game industry. Dedicated lab space for GAME students at Brock has helped foster friendships, says Jones.<\/p>\n

\u201cGAME as a program is very social,\u201d says Jones. \u201cThere is a lot of team and group work, as no one person can realistically do everything on a team. This focus on team work completely flipped my social life, as I had to adapt to meeting and working with new people like never before.\u201d<\/p>\n

GAME Director and Professor with the Department of Computer Science Michael Winter says the program has been a huge success.<\/p>\n

\u201cDue to the specific nature of the program, such as tight course schedule and two locations, there have been challenges in organization and scheduling during the first few years,\u201d says Winter. \u201cThe students provided a lot of constructive feedback and helped to get these problems settled quickly.\u201d<\/p>\n

The graduates are already making their mark in the games industry, says Jason Hawreliak, Director of the Centre for Digital Humanities.<\/p>\n

\u201cA number of students in this graduating class have already gone on to secure jobs in the games industry or started their own independent studios here in Niagara,\u201d says Hawreliak. \u201cThis shows how our programs both benefit from, and contribute to, the interactive digital media industry in the region and beyond.\u201d<\/p>\n

Both Krzywinska and Jones plan to stay in the game industry, which generates more than $1.6 billion in revenue in Ontario alone. Jones is looking at opportunities with indie companies in Toronto and Niagara while working towards becoming a technical lead at a larger studio.<\/p>\n

Kryzwinska has joined with fellow graduates Adam Henderson (BA ’20) and Matthew Newton (BA’ 20) to kick-start her dream of having her own game company.<\/p>\n

\u201cAdjective Noun Studios is here to give avid mobile games quality games with full gameplay experiences by using the skills that we were taught at Brock,\u201d she says.\u00a0\u201cAs the first cohort of the GAME program, it\u2019s been an honour to be able to test drive the program and leave a mark with what we have accomplished,\u201d says Krzywinska.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Brock University\u2019s first cohort of GAME students did one last \u2018first\u2019 together last week: graduate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":66651,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[119,37,41,1,4],"tags":[9181,8912,97,156,9196,567,263,884,5538,30,6495,9182,3976,9124],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66649"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/36"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=66649"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66649\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":66771,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66649\/revisions\/66771"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/66651"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66649"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66649"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66649"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}