Aug 08, 2014 05:39 AM EDT By Staff Reporter, UniversityHerald Reporter

The N.Y.U. Game Center in the Tisch School of the Arts will start accepting applicants for the bachelor of fine arts program in game design for January. Last Month, the New York State Education Department approved the undergraduate program.

The Game Center expects 20 applications from within N.Y.U. and overall 40 students for the inaugural class of 2015. In May, N.Y.U.'s first class of M.F.A. in game design graduated.

"If you study history, if you study literature, if you study science and engineering, you're not just studying for a job in that field, you're using that as a structuring element to understand everything else," said Frank Lantz, the director of the Game Center, The New York Times reports.

Lantz said that the undergraduate degree would help students understand "the significance of game design as not only a potential career but as a way of thinking about the world."

During the next four years, the Center expects to recruit additional eight full-time professors in game design to its current roster of six.

Other similar undergraduate programs are offered at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, N.Y., the Rochester Institute of Technology in New York, the University of Southern California and the University of Utah.

Beginning fall of 2014, the George Mason University in Virginia will offer a minor in "Sport and Computer Game Design" - a first of its kind in the country.

"For students who have interest in sports and passion in sports and who never had an opportunity to pursue it in college, this gives them an opportunity to take that knowledge and passion and combine it with an interest in game design," founding director of George Mason's Simulation and Game Institute, Scott Martin, said in a statement.

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