Guildford College has successfully run the Creative Media Gaming Pathway course for the past 7 years with students progressing to both related University courses (with Southhampton Solent, Bournemouth University and Nottingham Trent being particularly common destinations) and industry (with prior students successfully placed in Frontier, The Imaginarium, Microsoft, Creative Assembly, Figment, EGX, Imagine publishing and even Heathrow airport security systems).
We focus on outcome, with students creating imaginative portfolios and playable games however in the past few years we've moved into additional aspects of digital creativity, centered around a custom designed Innovation Room. Students have made custom 3d characters for sale at one of the UK's largest toy conventions, begun experimenting with VR experiences, drawn on large Interactive Whiteboards and more - enlarging the student experience to the best possible outcome we can offer them. In fact, the student's capability with touch screen art apps has seen them demo their skills on Sky Arts Portrait Artist of the Year, Guildford Games Fest, MCM comics Expo, EGX Expo, the London Super Comic Convention and at both the Microsoft Store and Apple Store on Regent Street and for Google demonstrating Tiltbrush at EGX. In addition, this year, a group of extremely brave students spoke on how gaming can help with mental health issues at EGX Rezzed while also creating mindfulness sheets for the Gaming the Mind break out room. Both of the course lecturers have a wide range of industry knowledge and experience and, in the case of one of the tutors, has been a touch screen art demonstration deliverer and speaker at 8 of the past 10 BETT education shows (the World's largest education trade technology show) and the US equivalent - ISTE - in both Chicago and San Antonio.
Neither the industry nor the course stand still and we are always keen to hear from local companies who would be interested in advising, helping, collaborating or more. That said - we are pretty nimble - changing course content and expected outcomes each year, sometimes each term, to take account of industry growth, change and direction. Our students and course speaks for itself, come say hi.
