COLLABORATIVE DEVELOPMENT
Bridging Student & Industry Success : A Team-Driven Approach
At SMU Guildhall , we produce professional quality games and teams , training future industry leaders using a constructivist method of instruction — combining lecture , lab , and studio . As part of our mission , faculty and students are able to pursue many opportunities to further the arts and sciences using game design and game technologies . students , and we remain the only masters game design program to offer all four of the major specializations in the game industry : Art Creation , Level Design , Production , and Software Development ( Programming ). Coursework for each student is individualized per specialization , with each taking majors , minors , directed focus studies , and special topics relative to their degree , as well as two professional development courses and one ethics course .
Successful teamwork is a requirement for graduation from SMU Guildhall . Our curriculum is interdisciplinary in thought and action , and at our core is team-based game development . Students take courses in their specialization and then apply these skills in crossdisciplinary Team Game Production courses as they concept , prototype , build , test , and release a game as a team . The size and composition of the teams change
Our faculty members are industry veterans with decades of experience . They mentor and model best practices in the team setting along with servant leadership methodology . The curriculum in our two-year program is team-centric with interdisciplinary thought and action , designed to allow students to “ learn it , live it , then lead it ” in a real-world experience .
SMU Guildhall offers over 100 graduate classes dedicated to game design for its certificate and master ' s per course to allow students to take on both lead and supporting roles .
Additionally , within this team-based structure , SMU Guildhall uses a custom-built team management system with IBM Watson , which allows students and faculty to access a wide range of tools to build teams , monitor team health , track team dynamics , and access nearly 10 years ' worth of anonymized team dynamic data that is available for research purposes .
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