In July of 2021, I left Maui Jim Sunglasses and planned to take some time to myself before moving on to my next employment opportunity. As fate would have it, shortly after leaving Maui Jim I was contacted by the Chair of Bradley University's Department of Interactive Media and offered a position teaching in their Game Design major.
Having graduated from this same department in 2017, I returned to a vastly different landscape. The Department of Interactive Media is now at 300+ students with 140+ in the Game Design major; when I graduated, there were 150 total students in the Department.
While at Bradley I taught a variety of courses (listed below). Throughout all of them, my main responsibility was to prepare the students for the Game Industry by helping them create the projects that they set out to build. Additional responsibilities included: guiding students through scope creep, advising on design iterations, providing critique on all deliverables, educating students on proper use of project management software, and advising students as they navigated interpersonal conflicts on their team.
Game Production I (Sophomore level): Students form teams of 4-5 members and take their game concept from Pre-Production to Gold over the course of a semester. For most students, this is the first time that they work on a team larger than 2 people and as such they experience the rigor of a team's development cycle.
Game Design II (Sophomore level): Students form teams of 4-6 members and create four unique prototypes over the course of a semester. With the focus on Rapid Prototyping, students are challenged to not grow attached to their games and instead focus on finding the fun in their core game mechanic.
Game Production II (Junior level): A continuation of Game Design II, students form teams of 6-8 members and select one prototype from Game Design II to finish developing over the course of a semester. Because the students are starting with a prototype that they may or may not have initially created, students experience what it is like to work on and invest time into a idea that they weren't directly responsible for. Additionally, students gain more experience working on a larger development team.
Exhibit Production (All majors and levels): At the end of each school year the Department of Interactive Media puts on FUSE, a student showcase where the public can interact with the games and interactive projects created by Interactive Media students. Typical attendance at the show ranges from 2,000 to 3,000 people. This course oversees the planning and execution of the show; consisting of a team of 15-20 students, the team is always helmed by a Student Producer (nominated by faculty). As a former Student Producer of FUSE, I was more than happy to return to FUSE and help guide the students as they bring the show to life. For the majority of students, this is the largest team that they will work on while at Bradley and students gain further experience working on multi-disciplinary teams.