Game on: Hostos internship offers paid video game design course, the first of its kind in New York

Students of a new Hostos internship program collaborate on how to create their original video game.

Photo courtesy Other Possible Games staff

This summer, six Hostos Community College students participated in a unique opportunity to collaborate on an original video game, learn valuable work skills and earn course credit — all while getting paid by their own school.

The students who participated are now well on their way to turning their passion for gaming into a viable career in an industry that is exploding worldwide.

Hostos, located in the South Bronx, was the state’s first public institution to offer a game design degree — a program that has been around 2012. Marcelo Díaz Viana Neto, assistant professor of game design at the college, said in an interview with the Bronx Times that he plans to make a recently formed internship “a fixture of the program.” The professor and his colleagues weren’t seeing enough well-paying, true entry-level positions in the field, so they developed the internship from scratch.

Shakan Paris, a 27-year-old Bronx native, was a member of this summer’s internship cohort and said that the program’s mantra — “just make stuff” — has helped them build a portfolio and work with confidence toward a career in game design.

The internship’s second cohort wrapped up in early August. As a group, they created an original video game called “A Worthy Toy,” telling the story of a Barbie-inspired doll who gets locked up by other toys and has to fight for her freedom.

Paris said the team still considers the game unfinished, but told the Bronx Times, “Personally, I’m pretty happy and proud of what we created.

“It took us some time to conceptualize and put into action what we were going to do … and to finally see it come to fruition is just, like, a special thing to see.”

Breaking down barriers

The Hostos internship is unprecedented in the U.S., as far as Viana Neto and his…