With virtual reality (VR) growing every day it was only a matter of time until more educational institutes began to offer recognised courses for students to enroll on and learn the growing industry. In the case of the University of the Arts London, they are in the process of setting up both BA and MA degrees in the VR field which will offer students all the skills they need to learn and master the technology, ready to enter the industry. VRFocus’ Nina Salomons sat down with Dan Bartlett, Program Director for Moving Images and Digital Arts, University of the Arts London to discuss this in more detail.
“So art University of the arts London, London’s college of communication campus, we are developing BA and MA degrees specifically for virtual reality technical studies.” Barlett explains: “It’s recognition of what we are already doing, VR projects are popping up all over London, we’ve got really well established BA and MA games and animation courses and film courses, and we were seeing VR projects popping up all over the place, across all years of the courses so we thought ‘Maybe we need to recognize this’ and give people in London and in Europe an opportunity to train in the field.”
The importance of ensuring the emerging industry has a skilled workforce in the coming years will be key to it’s growing success. By facilitating the discovery and learning of technologies such as VR, University of the Arts London is helping to success the future of the industry by proving the skills and knowledge needed to cultivate new experiences and content. Courses won’t start until next year in 2019, and as Bartlett explains further, there will be room for any and all interested in VR.
“So, the BA in virtual reality launches in 2019 and it’s an opportunity to come at it from lots of different angles so if their interested in games design in virtual reality then we work with things like Maya and Unity to creative interactive, immersive experiences. If their interested in film making we’ve got our own live television and green screen studios but there’ll be using 360 cameras and depth cameras in order to create 3D, 360, immersive narrative sequences and the same for animation as well but we’re bringing it into virtual reality to create really immersive, narrative lead content.”
You can see the full interview below in which Bartlett explains in great details the plans that University of the Arts London has for the courses and how it will allow students to explore new opportunities for creative applications of VR. VRFocus will be sure to bring you all the latest on the courses in the future, along with all things VR, so stay tuned for more.