College Magazine ranked UC Irvine first in its list “10 Best Schools for Gamers,” while the university placed in the top 20% nationally on the Animation Career Review’s (ACR) 2015 Game Design and Development School Rankings, both rankings came out in May 2015. ACR ranked UC Irvine’s game development cachet 25th nationally, eighth among public institutions and the sixth best on the West Coast. Among the reasons for the No. 1 ranking, College Magazine commended UCI’s consistently strong showing at the annual IvyLoL National Championship, a collegiate League of Legends tournament, observing: “With a gaming community half a thousand students strong, UC Irvine proves that games are only fun if you have people to share them with.”
Both lists recognize UCI’s computer game science major, offered by ICS, which combines a solid foundation in computer science with a focus on designing, building, and understanding computer games and other forms of interactive media. The fundamentals of information and computer science — along with coursework in mathematics, statistics, physics, and film and media studies — provide students with the concepts and tools to study a wide scope of computer game technologies.
“I’m excited to see that UC Irvine’s computer game science major is moving up in the rankings,” says Informatics Lecturer Dan Frost. “The world is discovering what our students already know — that we provide a top-notch education, an enthusiastic student body and faculty, and an excellent track record of placing students in game-industry jobs.”