Bachelor degree requirement

Students can now put their thumbs to good use.

The University of Southern California has, with the help of Electronic Arts (EA), created a new degree program in the School of Cinema-Television: interactive entertainment. Bing Gordon, chief creative officer and co-founder of EA, the world's biggest video game publisher, was named faculty chair, a post he would assume for a one- to two-year period.

The interactive entertainment track falls within the interactive media division of the School of Cinema-Television, and offers a three-year Master of Fine Arts degree program.

But USC is not alone in recognizing the impact of the gaming industry in recent years. Mt. Sierra College (Calif.) has also recently instituted a bachelor's degree program in Game Arts and Design. "It seems there are more colleges teaching something related to this field each year," said Dan Soine, director of public relations for The Art Institute of California, San Francisco, which offers two bachelor's degree programs in Game Art & Design and Visual & Game Programming.

There is good reason for the upward trend in the number of degree programs: Interactive media professionals can serve a variety of functions, according to Westwood College (Calif.). "The game and entertainment industry has seen a steady increase over the past six to seven years averaging 14 percent growth per year, and is expected to continue this strong growth for years to come," according to Westwood's website.

Game designers have been able to take their skills beyond entertainment to find jobs designing other interactive software, military and health care simulations, and for television and education.