Colleges With Game Design Degrees

West Coast Schools

• The University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts has a video game design program voted the best in the country in a poll conducted by The Princeton Review in 2011. The school offers a bachelor's degree in interactive entertainment as well as a master of fine art in interactive media.

  In Redmond, Washington, specialty college DigiPen Institute of Technology focuses entirely on math, science and engineering. Undergraduates can pursue a bachelor of arts or bachelor of science in game design. Other choices include bachelor of fine arts in digital art and animation and bachelor of science in real-time interactive simulation.

Northeast Schools

• The New School, an arts school in New York City, is home to Parsons The New School for Design. In addition to summer intensive programs and continuing education classes, Parsons offers a bachelor of fine arts and a master of fine arts in game design and technology.

  Rochester Institute of Technology in upstate New York offers both a bachelor's and master's degree in game design and development, as well as a two-year professional certificate in interactive multimedia development.

Southern Schools

• Southern Methodist University's Guildhall program offers a five-year program for a combined bachelor's degree in computer science and master's certificate in digital game technology. The school also accepts students for the master's program separately.

  Housed at the University of Central Florida in Orlando, the Florida Interactive Entertainment Academy offers graduate programs in game design and development. Students can focus on one or two tracks chosen from art, programming or production.

Midwest Schools

• A large, private school in Chicago, DePaul Unversity offers three concentrations for Game Development majors. Undergraduate students can choose between programming, production and design, or game art. The university also offers a Master of Science in Game Development.

  Michigan State University in East Lansing offers a bachelor's degree in Media & Information with concentrations available for Web and Interactive Games as well as Interactive and Social Media.