One Year In, New Minor is Scoring Big
Sequina King has a passion for screenwriting and a love of video games, and these interests have dovetailed in a productive way, thanks to an exciting curricular pathway in the School of Communication.
The senior from Pennsylvania is a radio/television/film and English double major and is enrolled in the Minor in Game Design, Media Arts, and Animation (GMA). She pursued the minor as a targeted way to reach her professional writing goals.
“I love video games, especially the writing, story, and world building,” she says. “Narrative designer is one of the career outcomes I've considered and do want to pursue.”
King is among the 18 students currently enrolled in the minor, which launched in Fall Quarter 2024. Courses offered this fall were Drawing for Media, Storytelling through Table-Top RPGS, Interactive Sound Design, and the Media Arts Studio. Winter and spring 2025 courses will include Writing for Video Games, Intro to 3D Modeling, Filmmaking and Emerging Technology, and Digital Musical Instrument Design, among others. The GMA minor is open to all Northwestern undergraduate students.
“It’s been getting a lot of attention,” says Brett Neveu, assistant professor of RTVF and the minor’s faculty coordinator. “I think the students can see the connective nature of the classes and the intention behind it.”
The minor blends the technical and studio art sides of game design and animation with the story, visual, and sound crafting that’s necessary for a compelling gaming narrative. It draws from courses offered by the School of Communication, McCormick School of Engineering, Medill School of Journalism, and the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences. Six units of credit are necessary to complete the minor.
“There’s an appetite for this at Northwestern,” says Elizabeth Mathis, associate director and program manager for the master’s program in Sound Arts and Industries (MASAI), which has some parallels with the minor. “For students to be able to operate in these gaming spaces and have familiarity with them has some overlay into working in film and television.”
The entertainment industry, particularly screenwriting, has dealt in recent memory with a spate of intrusive forces, from the proliferation of unscripted or “reality” television to the threat that generative artificial intelligence poses to an already vulnerable workforce. It has become imperative for screenwriting educators, and leading ones like Northwestern’s, to ensure that their students are prepared to meet this evolving moment. And the gaming industry has proved promising.
“The best video games are the ones that hire screenwriters to write the narrative,” Neveu says. “And it’s something that students need to know how to do coming out of college—another spoke in the hub, as it were. And if you know how to do it, it’s part of your portfolio, and then you can get a job that pays pretty well.”
And it helps that students are all too familiar with the industry, having grown up playing high-quality, realistic video games.
“When you yourself are literally the character, you immerse yourself in that story,” King says. “I think it’s a really good way to think about how you’re positioning yourself as a writer, or director, or someone who’s making sound in a movie.”
Stephanie Burns (C91), a former RTVF major herself, along with her husband Greg Booth, made a significant gift to support the minor. Stephanie serves as Senior Vice President and General Counsel for Sony Interactive Entertainment, which makes the PlayStation gaming console and such blockbuster games as AstroBot; Death Stranding 2: On the Beach; Ghost of Yotei; and Helldivers II.
Undergraduates in the minor now partner with graduate students in MASAI on the Game Jam, a spring quarter event open to anyone at Northwestern wherein participants build a game from scratch in a day while enjoying guest speakers, gameplay, and community. Mathis calls it a “wonderful way to celebrate what’s happening in gaming here at Northwestern.”
Neveu says students are already reaping the benefits of this pathway, with internships and grad program offers increasingly piling up.
“I love it,” King says. “I’m really glad it’s a minor.”
To learn more about the Minor in Game Design, Media Arts, and Animation, visit the Academic Catalog or reach out to gma@northwestern.edu.
Photo credit Stephan Moore