Kent Career Tech Center launches college 3-D Animation, Game Design course for high schoolers

Kent County high school students now have the option to receive college credit for 3-D animation and game design at Kent Career Technical Center (KCTC).

After a two-year pilot, KCTC launched the college-level 3-D Animation and Game Level Design course in September. Students must pass a prerequisite graphics class at KCTC. Students can use the credits at either Ferris State University or Davenport University.

"We articulate the 10- level class at Ferris," says Amy Badovinac, the instructor for the KCTC course. "I teach our students here the exact same classes Ferris students learn at college or online."

An advisory committee of business leaders, people from the animation and gaming industry and post-secondary schools guide the curriculum based on what students need to know to get a degree and then get a job using the skills.

Those careers could include jobs in the rapidly growing gaming industry, the film industry for companies such as DreamWorks and Pixar, local television stations, creating 3-D animations for the web, educational video games, or storyboarding for companies creating marketing campaigns.

"Locally Herman Miller, Stryker and Steelcase create 3-D models to showcase their products," says Badovinac. "One of them worked with our students to create a model for a chair. You can put the model through Internet conferencing to a client in a Japan, the client can decide if they like the chair and fabric and changes can be made instantly, versus creating whole products and shipping them."

Students also work with a KCTC English teacher to receive high school credit for one year of English because the animation course requires extensive composition, storytelling and writing.

Source: Amy Badovinac, Kent Career Technical Center

Deborah Johnson Wood is development news editor for Rapid Growth Media. She can be contacted at [email protected].