Pittsburgh Art + Technology

Entertainment Technology Center (ETC) at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh had to be pretty spectacular to lure The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses author, Jesse Schell away from Disney’s Imagineering Virtual Reality Studio in 2002. The renowned ETC program offers an interdisciplinary Masters of Entertainment Technology degree, co-sponsored by the University’s College of Fine Arts and School of Computer Science.

ETC Program Background
A number of precipitous events spurred the creation of this unique program; most significantly, late Professor Randy Pausch’s (you may have seen his viral video, Last Lecture) creation of a groundbreaking computer science course, Building Virtual Worlds, and, at the same time, the Drama Department’s interest in the convergence of technology and the arts. Together, these two departments joined forces to expand their “interdisciplinary friendship,” creating the ETC. Each year, the background of the incoming class is equally split along those lines – half from art and design, half from engineering and computer science. The goal of the program isn’t to turn the geeks into artists or the other way around. The program emphasizes each student emerging from the program with a broad toolkit of interdisciplinary knowledge and awareness.

ETC Master’s Program
In the two-year program, ETC students study topics ranging from game design, technology, storytelling, and improvisational acting. According to their program website, project work forms the core of the curriculum, “bringing together interdisciplinary student teams that must produce working artifacts; in the tradition of Carnegie Mellon, this emphasis is on making real things that work.”

Interview with Jesse Schell about the program.
Read the original post on the San Diego State University Blog.

~ by Admin on September 17, 2009.

Posted in Carnegie Mellon University, Entertainment Technology, ETC
Tags: Carnegie Mellon, Disney Imagineering, Entertainment Technology, Entertainment Technology Center, ETC, Game Design, Jesse Schell, Masters Degree, Pittsburgh, Randy Pausch, Shell Games