Graduate numbers increase in program

What do top entertainment and software companies like Google, Cartoon Network, YouTube, EA, and Lockheed Martin have in common with popular games like NCAA, Madden, Wedding Dash or Tiger Woods: PGA Tour? The answer: UCF graduates.

Each company listed, as well as almost 100 other businesses worldwide, feature students from UCF's Florida Interactive Entertainment Academy, known to its faculty, students and graduates alike as FIEA.

Located in downtown Orlando on East Livingston Avenue, FIEA had its first graduating class of 12 in 2005 and now boasts 191 total graduates, with a fall 2011 graduating class of 54.

FIEA has also been heralded by the Princeton Review as the second best graduate-level program for video game development in the country.

"Our program's very industry based," says Todd Deery, communications and admissions director for FIEA, about why their program has been so successful.

With a building covering more than 120,000 square feet, massive cubicles serving as each student's individual workspace, wireless monitors with up-to-date industry and academic news feeds, a game lounge featuring a PS2, PS3, Wii and various other game consoles as well as an extensive audio, video and gaming library, it is clear at every turn that staying current as well innovative is important to the administration.

To continue meeting that goal of being modern, the FIEA program offers three tracks: art, production and programming.

Students from each track have the opportunity to take classes from other tracks, and no two courses are offered at the same time in any given semester.

The administration consistently keeps an eye on the industry's movements in order to maintain a relevant curriculum. The art track was recently altered to include more technical aspects and classes in order to compensate for a growing need in the gaming and entertainment industry.

"I would say I think we've been successful in sending students to top companies when potential students see that it's very influential for them," Deery said, explaining the substantial growth of the program in such a short amount of time.

FIEA's graduate students go through a 16-month program that starts in the fall, goes through the summer and ends at graduation the subsequent fall semester where they awarded a Master of Science in Interactive Entertainment.

From start to finish, the students are put through a rigorous hands-on program that begins when they assist in creating "rapid build games" their first semester, which are basic prototypes of the types of fully functioning games they will be manufacturing throughout the spring and summer.

"We're about making. Theory doesn't do here," Deery said about the program's very hands-on philosophy.

"This is really like getting a high-powered job and learning on the job," technical producer track student Charlyn Chisholm said of the workload and immediacy of instruction. "We had to jump in."

Chisholm had no industry experience when she entered the program last fall, but now she is leaving and has written five games.

"Your confidence builds very quickly," Chisholm said.

Every fall, graduating students have the opportunity to be one of a small number allowed to present a video game project that they "pitch" to the other students, faculty, staff and alumni of FIEA during a publicly open event.

One of the projects, Scarfell, even gained enough notoriety that a FIEA graduate, Christopher Darin, was allowed to create a "post-mortem," or report on what went right as well as what went wrong for the game; it was published on gamecareerguide.com, a noted gaming information site.

"Every single person in FIEA will get put on a project," production director Rick Hall said.

Though it may seem like the graduate program is a daunting task, most of the students seem up for the challenge despite their various levels of prior knowledge coming into FIEA.

"I didn't have that much experience...It was a good learning process for me," technical track student Floyd Reece said.

The games are voted on by the faculty and current students, and the successful few — usually no more than four or five — are then created by the current students during the six months of the spring and summer semesters.

Every aspect of the game is created by the students from the necessary software down to the instruction manual insert in the cover of the box.

Those games, or "projects," then become portfolio pieces for the graduating students who pitched them, as well as for the current students who helped bring them into fruition.

By the end of the experiences they get from the FIEA program, every student can walk away with something that shows their skills and talents to the world as well as to themselves.