For the 12th consecutive year, The Princeton Review has ranked DigiPen Institute of Technology as one of the top 5 schools for the study of game design. The college admission services company ranked DigiPen No. 5 on its list of the top 50 undergraduate schools and No. 9 on the list of the 25 top graduate schools.
The rankings were based on a 2020 survey given to 150 higher education institutions in the U.S., Canada, and abroad offering game design courses or degree programs. The survey collected data on a range of topics, including game design curriculum, faculty, facilities, and graduate success.
“We highly recommend DigiPen Institute of Technology and every one of the schools that made our Top Schools for Game Design lists for 2021,” said Rob Franek, editor-in-chief for The Princeton Review. “Their faculties are superlative. Their facilities are state-of-the-art. Their alumni include many of the video game industry’s most prominent artists, designers, developers, and entrepreneurs.”
In 1998, DigiPen became the first college in the world to offer a four-year degree in game development, with the introduction of the BS in Computer Science in Real-Time Interactive Simulation. Today, almost 25 years later, DigiPen graduates have contributed to more than 1,600 commercial games as programmers, artists, designers, and more. That includes several recent critically acclaimed titles, such as Ghost of Tsushima, Hades, Half-Life: Alyx, Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales, and The Last of Us Part II — five of the six games nominated for “Best Game” at the 2021 BAFTA Game Awards.
DigiPen’s programs equip students for game industry careers through a combination of foundational academic coursework and project-based learning. Each year, students from multiple disciplines work together on self-organized teams to design and develop original video game projects from start to finish.
“DigiPen prepared me for this type of work environment by continually encouraging us to work with teammates on game projects throughout the years,” said DigiPen graduate Ming-Lun “Allen” Chou, one of nine DigiPen alumni who worked on the aforementioned The Last of Us Part II at developer Naughty Dog. “The flat structure at Naughty Dog is very similar to how I used to work on projects with teammates at DigiPen, so I just eased right in.”
For more information, you can view the full report and rankings on The Princeton Review website.