Project Mentor: Professor Michael Spear, Computer Science and Engineering
Project Description:
How can gamifying the college experience help with student preparedness, belonging, and wellbeing?
The "Leveling Up to Lehigh Life" project aims to combine computer science, graphic design, music, storytelling, and marketing to create a casual 2-D game to help new students of all backgrounds adapt to life at Lehigh University. The experience of being a first-year student represents a significant change in social norms, complete with strange vocabulary; unfamiliar social customs; a set of complex, implicit rules for how to interact with professors in person and electronically; and many situations in which small pieces of information, passed mostly by word of mouth, can have a huge impact on academic and social success. The members of this team will create a game that introduces the player to these ideas. The initial goal is that the game will allow admitted students to learn about life at Lehigh before they set foot on campus. Long-term goals include creating a multi-player version that will help admitted students to virtually meet and identify potential roommates, and a "mod" system for easily re-casting the game to other settings, such as study abroad programs.