I'll be teaching games at Northeastern this fall.
I last week accepted a part-time position at Northeastern University, teaching a lab section attached to Games & Society, an intro-to-game-studies class taught by Brian Sullivan. I'm so far signed on just to handle the fall semester, but if I'm not terrible at it and I don't hate it, I'll likely do more afterwards.
Teaching this lab involves guiding groups of students through the play of a by-the-syllabus game (which may be a tabletop game or a videogame), and then gathering as a class to discuss it. As with many other games-studies classes in universities, it's only a year or two old, so its structure and content are rather malleable; while I'll have the materials from past semesters, others in the program have made it clear that I can help reshape it this fall, should I wish.
While I fully expect this to represent a significant time investment -- I've also agreed to help grade papers from Brian's class -- the pay doesn't really match, so I've no plans to change my position or workload at Appleseed. I chose to leap at this opportunity because even though doing a good job writing software makes me feel awesome (and puts money in the bank), my real passion is with games, and the study thereof. I have no reservations accepting an adjunct's stipend in order to finally, finally become a paid member of the game-scholar community, even just an entry-level one. I had thought last year that when this moment arrived, it would be via my selling an article or essay to some publication. I have no complaints about the surprising form it ended up taking.
This is also me backing down from my brief fling with iOS game development from a couple of months ago. While that's a topic I remain interested in, there's just no way I can pursue that, Appleseed, and now teaching without doing a bad job at probably all of them. I had to put one of them away, and sadly, the iOS project was the obvious choice: it offers no guaranteed income, and represents a much weaker expression of my passion to work in game studies than the NEU opportunity does.
I feel really happy about this, and hope that it will give me the opportunity, in time, to grant more attention to my own game-studies pursuits. I'd love to return to making mature and intelligent videos about games, for one thing. I have pipe dreams of new video series, but have lacked the backing, both resource-wise and spiritually. This opportunity might help change that, down the road. We'll see.
Teaching this lab involves guiding groups of students through the play of a by-the-syllabus game (which may be a tabletop game or a videogame), and then gathering as a class to discuss it. As with many other games-studies classes in universities, it's only a year or two old, so its structure and content are rather malleable; while I'll have the materials from past semesters, others in the program have made it clear that I can help reshape it this fall, should I wish.
While I fully expect this to represent a significant time investment -- I've also agreed to help grade papers from Brian's class -- the pay doesn't really match, so I've no plans to change my position or workload at Appleseed. I chose to leap at this opportunity because even though doing a good job writing software makes me feel awesome (and puts money in the bank), my real passion is with games, and the study thereof. I have no reservations accepting an adjunct's stipend in order to finally, finally become a paid member of the game-scholar community, even just an entry-level one. I had thought last year that when this moment arrived, it would be via my selling an article or essay to some publication. I have no complaints about the surprising form it ended up taking.
This is also me backing down from my brief fling with iOS game development from a couple of months ago. While that's a topic I remain interested in, there's just no way I can pursue that, Appleseed, and now teaching without doing a bad job at probably all of them. I had to put one of them away, and sadly, the iOS project was the obvious choice: it offers no guaranteed income, and represents a much weaker expression of my passion to work in game studies than the NEU opportunity does.
I feel really happy about this, and hope that it will give me the opportunity, in time, to grant more attention to my own game-studies pursuits. I'd love to return to making mature and intelligent videos about games, for one thing. I have pipe dreams of new video series, but have lacked the backing, both resource-wise and spiritually. This opportunity might help change that, down the road. We'll see.