Graduate
Welcome to IMGD’s Graduate Programs!
As one of the oldest game programs in the US, IMGD has always worked with students to explore the foundations and futures of interactive media and game development. As the director, I am delighted to welcome graduate students to one of our three graduate programs, where we train expert practitioners, researchers, and artists. Our program works at the intersections of Computer Science, Humanities and Arts, Social Science and Policy Studies, and Business, applying a unique project-based curriculum to be leaders in design, development, art, engineering, and production.
Our students are sought by industry leaders in interactive media and game development, bringing expertise in emergent technologies along with a strong foundation in collaborative development. Students go on to work in the game industry, in medical imaging, in 3d modeling, in music technologies, and more. I am so pleased to point to an involved faculty, who come from both industry and academia, who work closely with students on their visions. As a director, I can speak specifically to the joy that we all experience with the success and ingenuity of our close-knit student community.
Explore IMGD Graduate Degrees
Looking to improve your skills and land a job in interactive media or game design/development? Consider our two-year Master of Science degree, where you’ll have the chance to both develop your technical, design, and production skills in the context of individual projects and while working as part of larger creative teams.
For students who want to further their artistic aspirations, our three-year Master of Fine Arts degree helps students to hone their artistic practice—in AR/VR, game design, electronic music, 3D modeling, animation, or experimental intermedia—while also placing an emphasis on professionalization, so that students leave WPI prepared for the next step in their careers.
Finally, our PhD in Computational Media prepares students for careers in research and academia, using both traditional methodologies and exciting forms of alternative scholarship common in emerging disciplines.
Graduate Highlights
Fighting Against 2019-nCoV: a simulation of fighting against the coronavirus, made by a team from Wuhan, China that includes two IMGD graduate students, Shano Liang and Max Chen.
All Through the Night: An AR holographic and tangible dollhouse project by Karen Royer. This work was part of Karen’s MS thesis, advised by Professor Gillian Smith.
Ash Garden: a puzzle game developed by a team of students in IMGD5000.
IMGD Graduate Courses
Ready to chart your path as an IMGD graduate? Explore the dropdown below or see WPI’s graduate catalog for more details.
Design
- IMGD 4700. ADVANCED STORYTELLING: QUEST LOGIC AND LEVEL DESIGN*
- MIS 4741. USER EXPERIENCE AND DESIGN*
- IMGD 5000. STUDIO
- IMGD 5010. IMGD FUNDAMENTALS
- IMGD 5300. DESIGN OF INTERACTIVE EXPERIENCES
- MIS 583. USER EXPERIENCE APPLICATIONS
- MIS 585. USER EXPERIENCE DESIGN
- MIS 586. USER EXPERIENCE RESEARCH METHODS
Technical Development
Interactive Media & Game Development
- IMGD 4000. TECHNICAL GAME DEVELOPMENT II*
- IMGD 4100. ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE FOR INTERACTIVE MEDIA AND GAMES.*
- IMGD 420X. GRAPHICAL SIMULATION OF PHYSICAL SYSTEMS*
- IMGD 440X. MOTION CAPTURE TECHNIQUES*
- IMGD 5100. TANGIBLE AND EMBODIED INTERACTION
Graphics/Imaging
- CS 543. COMPUTER GRAPHICS
- CS 545. DIGITAL IMAGE PROCESSING
- CS 549. COMPUTER VISION
- CS 563. ADVANCED TOPICS IN COMPUTER GRAPHICS
Software Engineering
- CS 509. DESIGN OF SOFTWARE SYSTEMS
- CS 562. ADVANCED TOPICS IN SOFTWARE ENGINEERING
Networks/Systems
- CS 513. COMPUTER NETWORKS
- CS 529. MULTIMEDIA NETWORKING
- CS 530. HIGH-PERFORMANCE NETWORKS
- CS 533. MODELING AND PERFORMANCE EVALUATION OF NETWORK AND COMPUTER SYSTEMS
- CS 577. ADVANCED COMPUTER AND COMMUNICATIONS NETWORKS
Artificial Intelligence
- CS 534. ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
- CS 538. KNOWLEDGE-BASED SYSTEMS
- CS 539. MACHINE LEARNING
- CS 540. ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE IN DESIGN
- CS 566. GRAPHICAL MODELS FOR REASONING UNDER UNCERTAINTY
- CS 568. ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE FOR ADAPTIVE EDUCATIONAL TECHNOLOGY
Human-Computer Interaction
Artistic Development
Professional Development
IMGD Theory
Education in Games
*As a graduate, 7-week 4000-level undergraduate courses can count as 2 credits towards your degree. See WPI's policies on credit conversion. You can ask professors for an additional 1 credit of independent study if you’d like to effectively turn them into a 3-credit course.
Earn Your BS & MS in 5 Years!
Want to start working towards your graduate degree as an undergrad? At WPI, you can get your BS and MS in IMGD in just five years by double counting up to 6 undergraduate courses as 12 graduate credits.
Graduate Resources
- Master of Science in IMGD: .pdf
- Master of Fine Arts in IMGD: .pdf
- PhD in Computational Media: .pdf
- MS Project & Thesis Process
Interactive Experience (e.g. Website, Game, Installation Work, Toy, Robot)
- Submit a short video of the experience and people interacting with it, along with 1–2 paragraphs of text describing how you made your experience (typically including what technologies were involved… and analog experiences are very welcome!), as well as what you think is unique or interesting about it. If a video isn’t possible, please provide photographs or screenshots along with your text description.
- Information about the design process for your project (for example, initial character sketches, mood boards, diagrams, testing reports, etc.) is interesting to the admissions committee, but only if it’s material that specifically guided your individual work.
- If your experience is publicly and freely released (e.g. a web-based game), we’ll try to interact/play with it. Please be sure to include any technical requirements and, if you include a link for us to play, be sure it runs in a recent version of Chrome or Firefox. Make sure we can get a sense for the experience in a short time (i.e., less than five minutes). It is best to submit video documentation alongside the interactive experience. We will not install or compile software during our admissions review.
3D Modeling or Animation
- Submit videos and/or screenshots that best capture your model and/or animations (e.g. multiple angles).
- Feel free to submit images and videos of multiple models; however, we always prefer for you to highlight your best work.
- Be sure to briefly describe what you were trying to achieve with each model, and how you achieved it, both technically (what software and artistic techniques did you use) and aesthetically.
Best Paper Award
- DO NOT SIMPLY SEND US A LINK TO A GITHUB REPO. We need some guidance to understand what you’d like us to look at. A short video (1–3 minutes) showing your code in action is highly encouraged.
- Please write one or two paragraphs describing the technologies you used (language(s), platform, libraries etc.), and the technical challenges you addressed in your development work.
- If you have designed a system, providing architectural diagrams describing it will likely be more meaningful than highlighting individual code fragments.
Ready to Apply?
See WPI’s application instructions for graduate students.
As part of your application, you may be asked to submit examples of technical and creative work. See the dropdown below for recommendations on how to submit different types of work as part of your IMGD application.