Some Colleges Are Offering Credit for Playing Videogames

CalMatters writes:

At least six Cal State campuses and nearly all of the University of California campuses have created esports programs since 2015, in which students host and compete in live tournaments, sometimes funded by corporate sponsors. Both Cal State Dominguez Hills and UC Irvine offer certificates in esports, which means students can earn credit for, yes, playing video games.

Educators who support the trend point to the jobs available in gaming and other forms of digital media, while students say esports clubs and classes have given them another way to connect virtually during the pandemic. 'Higher ed needs to evolve or die,' said Dina Ibrahim, the academic advisor of the SF State esports athletic club and a professor of broadcast journalism. 'We need to be teaching students relevant skills, that's going to get them jobs in a rapidly changing landscape....' Ibrahim shared the syllabus for her live stream broadcasting class, which she created after she noticed the effects esports and gaming were having on the field of digital media. In the course, students learn how to market a brand, monetize it, and develop live streamed events using Twitch — an entertainment site mainly aimed at gamers — and other platforms. For their final project, they help organize and market a live-streamed tournament featuring games like Overwatch, Valorant and League of Legends. 'What I wanted to do was just provide a venue for students who are doing it anyway, to get credit,' said Ibrahim. 'And also not just focusing on the gaming community; it's really gaming, plus content creation.'

Those skills could help students land their first media jobs, said Mark 'Garvey' Candella, director of student and education programs for Twitch... 'All the skills that you're learning and using while you participate in gaming and esports are highly transferable and valuable skills in emerging new and digital media,' said Candella, who has helped universities establish esports curriculum that uses gaming as a vehicle to teach branding, management and hardware and software knowledge. At Cal State Dominguez Hills, esports academic advisor Ruben Caputo says he's seen 37 students obtain internships based on their work in the program this past year alone... Like other collegiate esports programs, the one at Dominguez Hills started as an informal student club and is now a thriving organization that has obtained sponsorships with companies such as Microsoft and Level Up Esports Apparel. The university is building a new $750,000 esports lab in the campus library, according to the student-run newspaper, The Bulletin. It will be divided into three sections: a classroom, an incubator and a competition area with rows of PCs...

More than 170 schools across the country have varsity esports teams, according to the National Association of Collegiate Esports, but the number with academic programs is much smaller — and students and professors involved in them say they still encounter skepticism from colleagues who see gaming as just a mind-numbing hobby. At UC Irvine, the first California college to pioneer an esports program, students can earn a continuing education certificate but there are no plans to develop a major in the field, said assistant director Kathy Chiang.

'We don't think that there's enough content for that,' she said...

Ibrahim argues that gaming 'is a huge, profit-churning component of the entertainment industry that can no longer be ignored,' adding that gaming students 'are getting skills that are going to prime you to work in a very significant industry that's only growing post pandemic.'

Read more of this story at Slashdot.