Gaming Skills Become a College Course

By BoomyBoy
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Rising Star

BoomyBoy

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StarCraft_box_art.jpg

Problem-solving skills used in one of -- if not the most -- popular real-time strategy games of all time are not unlike those used in the 21st Century real world. At least that is the song that the University of Florida is singing.

The school, located in Gainesville, Florida, is offering a two-credit honors couse titled, "21st century Skills in Starcaft." The eight-week class "does not teach about Starcraft," but combines weekly gameplay, analysis of recorded matches and "synthesis of real/game-world concepts," to develop workplace skills.

Part of the course description for the interdisciplinary honors course reads:

"With society becoming increasingly technology-based and fast-paced, it is important for professionals to be highly proficient in skills such as critical thinking, problem solving, resource management, and adaptive decision making. These skills are fundamental in Starcraft and therefore make the game a highly effective environment for students to analyze and take action in complex situations."

The course is open to twenty students that have access to a Mac or PC, Internet access outside the school labs and experience playing the popular game. (No noobs allowed.)

The class is taught by Nathaniel Poling, a doctoral student in the school's department of education. He recently told the MIT Technology Review:

"In StarCraft you're managing a lot of different units and groups of different capacities. It's not a stretch to think of that in the business world or in the work of a healthcare administrator."

In other words, don't use a Dragoon to do the job of a Zealot.

Let's hope the curriculum includes other important tidbits, such as the tip that playing the game for 50 hours with little sleep or food can be bad for your health.

This isn't Blizzard Entertainment's first foray into the world of higher education. Last year, the University of California at Berkeley started offering a course in competitive Starcraft playing.

Source: PC World

Grand Master

treemonster

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what the hell?! I almost dont use keyboard for starcraft, and these guys seem like they are only using keyboard :D

APM is a myth. i've seen a few videos called "teh hax life" that show the keyboard and in game video side by side and he's basically spamming random keys just to spam random keys while wasting his time in game by going to place a building then misplacing it over an object before suddenly changing camera location and so on and so forth. it's extremely obvious to anyone who's ever played sc1, especially if you learned all the keybinds and used them. which i did like 10 years ago. it's like saying you have to be constantly pressing keys and issuing orders instead of using good timing when it counts.

for example in wc3 DOTA, it's more about timing last hit with your hero as i understand it, not spamming orders.

Veteran

freedonX

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guild management 101

raid leadership 102

soon i'll be putting my gaming achievements on to my resume with links to my wow armoury profile as a reference.

Yeah indeed, even though doesn't seem much. You experience different colleagues at work, different roles and how they react to criticism or even how they manage their work

Grand Master

obiwong

Posted
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I wish they had had these classes when I went to school. In a few years we probably will be listing these classes on our resume.

in the next few years i'll be putting my WoW Gearscore and my SC2 1v1 placement on my resume lol

and on workopolis i'll be seeing "LFM Software Engineers. Link B.Sc achievement and over 9000 gearscore"

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