Making a living doing something you love \u2013 it\u2019s the definition of career fulfillment. On April 1, high school students and teachers converged on East Stroudsburg University for an esports event designed to show the teens how their passion for video games could lead to careers in the industry in everything from computer programming, engineering and graphic design to communications, marketing and advertising.<\/p>\n
The event drew more than 50 students plus teachers and administrators from the school districts of Allentown, Parkland, Nazareth, East Penn and Jim Thorpe. They ate lunch at Dansbury Commons before taking tours of the ESU campus, including the new Esports Room at in the Mattioli Recreation Center and the 4K McGarry TV Studio. They heard about the demand for skilled workers from video game industry professionals with Unreal Engine and Cleverlike Studios, which develops content and experiences for top games, including Minecraft and Fortnite.<\/p>\n
By day\u2019s end, Andres Vargas, a 10th<\/sup> grader at Allen High School, was fired up by the possibilities in the field and impressed with the TV studio and esports facilities at ESU.<\/p>\n \u201cEverything I saw was so eye-opening,\u201d Vargas said. \u201cIt\u2019s like you could see the future. I could see myself coming here and enjoying everything.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI want to be a graphic designer,\u201d he said. \u201cThe amount of things you can create with graphics is amazing.\u201d<\/p>\n Brian Dickman and Ian Southwell from Cleverlike Studios did a presentation by Zoom in which they showed off the power of Unreal Engine for creating virtual worlds for films and videos as well as immersive, interactive 3D experiences in areas such as fashion and architecture. They talked about the high demand for skilled workers in the field.<\/p>\n Dickman asked the students: \u201cWho here has played Minecraft before?\u201d Nearly every hand in the room went up.<\/p>\n \u201cI can produce video games for a living now,\u201d he told the audience.<\/p>\n \u201cI grew up with a Gameboy,\u201d Southwell said. \u201cI decided instead of just playing games, I was going to make games.\u201d<\/p>\n The conference organizers understand that the students may have parents and grandparents who are skeptical of the value of video gaming. Richard Otto, Ph.D., associate professor of digital media technologies and the chair of the department, puts the booming industry in context.<\/p>\n \u201cImagine getting in on the ground floor of the NFL or the NBA,\u201d Dr. Otto said. \u201cThat\u2019s what\u2019s happening\u2026there\u2019s a whole business ecosystem being created around the world focused on gaming.\u201d<\/p>\n Go to Hitmarker.net, a website for jobs in esports, and more than 10,000 listings will come up.<\/p>\n \u201cThe reality is there are so many different aspects of the esports industry that are available for careers because it\u2019s so interdisciplinary by nature,\u201d said Jason Engerman, Ph.D., assistant professor of digital media technologies. Esports requires workers with skills in information technology, writing, graphics, communications, digital media, management, coaching and playing, to name just a few.<\/p>\n The April 1 event was part of a National Science Foundation program that focuses on using digital media technologies to help diverse groups of students continue their education at ESU and beyond in the fields of Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM).<\/p>\n ESU\u2019s Department of Digital Media Technologies has added a graduate certification that explores professional aspects of esports, as well as two undergraduate courses: Digital Sports Entertainment Production and Esports Business Strategy.<\/p>\n In 2019, students and faculty launched the Creative Media Factory, which offers opportunities for students interested in an esports career to develop the tools based in STEM subjects they will need, while exposing them to industry professionals and connecting them to companies. ESU students are on the junior research team of the NSF grant and helped design and develop the April 1 event.<\/p>\n \u201cThey can use the skills that they\u2019re learning in the classroom to build out opportunities for themselves,\u201d Engerman said.<\/p>\n Otto agreed.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re not interested in teaching students how to play games, because they would just crush us,\u201d he said, chuckling. \u201cWhat we are interested in is helping them understand the business aspects behind it and the careers connected to it. If we can help students find that connection that is a powerful bridge to their future.\u201d<\/p>\n During the esports event, ESU showed off its new Esports Room created and run by the Student Activity Association.\u00a0 Opened in fall 2021, the center offers 10 high-end Alienware PCs, as well as flat-screen TVs and games and gaming consoles.<\/p>\n Yovian Torres, a junior from Allen High, said he plans to join the military after graduating and then hopes to go to college to learn how to design video games, which he sees as just a different form of storytelling.<\/p>\n \u201cMaking a game is like writing a book,\u201d Torres said. \u201cPeople playing the game are like characters in the book.\u201d<\/p>\n Rebecca Singer, who teaches computer programming at Dieruff High, said interest in the ESU event was high. More than 50 students signed up to go but Dieruff had to cap the number at 19 because they were sharing a bus with Allen High students. For some of the teens, it was their first time being on a college campus and some talked about wanting to attend ESU when they graduate.<\/p>\n \u201cIt also expanded their knowledge of the many different subfields and careers within esports,\u201d Singer said. \u201cOn the bus back to Dieruff the students talked about how they would like to work with Unreal Engine and how they can\u2019t believe their \u2018hobbies\u2019 can get them scholarships for school.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Making a living doing something you love \u2013 it\u2019s the definition of career fulfillment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":21606,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[143,20,42,58],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21604","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-community","category-esu-success-stories","category-news-release","category-slider"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quantum.esu.edu\/insider\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21604"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quantum.esu.edu\/insider\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quantum.esu.edu\/insider\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quantum.esu.edu\/insider\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quantum.esu.edu\/insider\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21604"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/quantum.esu.edu\/insider\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21604\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21624,"href":"https:\/\/quantum.esu.edu\/insider\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21604\/revisions\/21624"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quantum.esu.edu\/insider\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21606"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quantum.esu.edu\/insider\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21604"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quantum.esu.edu\/insider\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21604"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quantum.esu.edu\/insider\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21604"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}