The School of Computer Science and Engineering collaborated with George Mason University to offer masters classes for a second consecutive year between 13-19 June 2022, which was generously funded by the Quintin Hogg Trust.
The classes were offered as part of the Mason Game & Technology Academy’s (MGTA) Virtual Game & AI Academy on Game Programming & Design with Unity & C#, the programming language. Classes were a mix of live streamed interactive learning experiences combined with team and/or virtual classroom research, design and creation time, as well as help sessions. Courses were also sprinkled throughout with live guest lectures from game developers and AI pioneers.
The classes were taught by MGTA professional industry team members Austin Burch, Lead Instructor, Quiana Covel, Co-Lead Instructor, and Alexander Wahid, Instructor.
Speaking about the master classes, Austin Burch said: “It was a great experience working with the students of Westminster. While I enjoy the challenges all my students bring, it was a fun change of pace for me to get to work with university-aged students where we could explore the concepts at hand more thoroughly. I had a wonderful time going outside the normal scope of the lessons with the students, who all seemed eager to explore the possibilities of the tools we were working with. Honestly, I think many would be quite impressed with what these students managed to create with only a handful of days learning.”
Quiana Covel commented: “Teaching for Westminster has been a delight. The students were fun and interested in learning which made teaching them that much more exhilarating. Being always eager to learn and asking questions, we learned just as much as we taught. Seeing the games and knowing all the hard work they all put forth into making them was exhilarating.”
Alexander Wahid added: “Working with the students was a great experience. They were engaged and it was a pleasure to see them learn about unity game development. It was exciting to see the games they made and how they took what we taught them to make their own projects.”
The goal of these classes was to engage computing students with a passion for either software engineering or the game industry. The event was locally coordinated by Markos Mentzelopoulos, Course Leader for the Computer Games Development BSc Honours course, and Jack Ingram, Lecturer for the Computer Games Development BSc Honours and Computer Science BSc Honours courses, whose students engaged on this event. The event facilitated a mix of year 1 and foundation students from related Computing courses.
Students who participated in the summer school commented positively on the experience. They highlighted that they loved the interactivity, teaching activities and feedback from workshop teams as they engaged and learned a lot in the different areas.
Markos Mentzelopoulos commented: “This event was a great opportunity to engage our students in an immersive virtual experience and foster new partnerships with other institutions. There was an amazing range of speakers from the industry and academia that provided support to all students and there is lots of communication between staff to improve it further for next year and expand it with competitions and group project simulations. The event helped our current students enhance their electronic portfolios in Game Project/Game Artefacts, improve their knowledge on specific topics and make them more ready for the coming year for employability.”
Find out more about Computer Science and Engineering courses at the University of Westminster.
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