1 00:00:04,842 --> 00:00:06,550 RICHARD EBERHARDT: One really great thing 2 00:00:06,550 --> 00:00:08,091 that we're finding this year is we've 3 00:00:08,091 --> 00:00:10,850 got a large number of women who are taking the course. 4 00:00:10,850 --> 00:00:13,640 We really try to focus on getting 5 00:00:13,640 --> 00:00:16,790 a good balance of diversity of voices in the course. 6 00:00:16,790 --> 00:00:21,710 Of, I think, 65, we're going to have 25 women first day. 7 00:00:21,710 --> 00:00:23,905 And we're doing basically this first day 8 00:00:23,905 --> 00:00:27,800 is to see what we can do to keep them engaged 9 00:00:27,800 --> 00:00:29,610 and keep them as part of the course. 10 00:00:29,610 --> 00:00:32,640 SARA VERRILI: We have had, in the last couple of years, 11 00:00:32,640 --> 00:00:37,400 we've had almost twice as many or three times as many women 12 00:00:37,400 --> 00:00:38,570 on our first day. 13 00:00:38,570 --> 00:00:40,350 And by our second week, we will be 14 00:00:40,350 --> 00:00:43,680 down to only four or five women in the class 15 00:00:43,680 --> 00:00:46,280 out of 30 odd people. 16 00:00:46,280 --> 00:00:48,880 So we're really hoping we can do a better 17 00:00:48,880 --> 00:00:50,679 job at keeping them this year. 18 00:00:50,679 --> 00:00:52,220 PHILIP TAN: And we're trying a couple 19 00:00:52,220 --> 00:00:53,690 of new techniques this year. 20 00:00:53,690 --> 00:00:59,950 We put a harassment policy into our syllubus-- 21 00:00:59,950 --> 00:01:01,910 as well as an initial email that went out 22 00:01:01,910 --> 00:01:04,200 to all of the students-- just making it clear 23 00:01:04,200 --> 00:01:09,600 that no, it's not OK to harass or to make your classmates 24 00:01:09,600 --> 00:01:10,680 feeling uncomfortable. 25 00:01:10,680 --> 00:01:13,720 And if you are in a position where you feel uncomfortable, 26 00:01:13,720 --> 00:01:16,190 you can always speak to the instructors. 27 00:01:16,190 --> 00:01:18,530 A lot of this is just standard MIT policy, 28 00:01:18,530 --> 00:01:21,760 but it's not normal practice for classes 29 00:01:21,760 --> 00:01:24,240 to actually state it upfront. 30 00:01:24,240 --> 00:01:26,010 Still, we want the students to understand 31 00:01:26,010 --> 00:01:28,570 that they have these options. 32 00:01:28,570 --> 00:01:31,270 What we also try to do is make sure 33 00:01:31,270 --> 00:01:37,290 that we have a lot of women speaking in our classes, 34 00:01:37,290 --> 00:01:40,450 so lecturers, for instance, or guests. 35 00:01:40,450 --> 00:01:44,290 We try to make sure that it's very easy 36 00:01:44,290 --> 00:01:49,180 to be able to see yourself as a professional because all 37 00:01:49,180 --> 00:01:54,810 of our speakers work in games in some manner or other. 38 00:01:54,810 --> 00:01:56,960 SARA VERRILI: I mean, we're not entirely sure 39 00:01:56,960 --> 00:01:59,564 why we're losing so many women. 40 00:01:59,564 --> 00:02:00,980 Because it's all in the beginning. 41 00:02:00,980 --> 00:02:05,070 It's not that we lose them later on. 42 00:02:05,070 --> 00:02:06,900 The women who go through our class, 43 00:02:06,900 --> 00:02:09,520 we get a very high percentage of them coming back 44 00:02:09,520 --> 00:02:14,660 for 617, The Advanced Game Studio Course. 45 00:02:14,660 --> 00:02:16,070 Once we've got them in the class, 46 00:02:16,070 --> 00:02:18,430 once they decide it's going to be an interesting class 47 00:02:18,430 --> 00:02:20,470 to take, we seem to keep them. 48 00:02:20,470 --> 00:02:24,060 The question is how can we keep from scattering them off 49 00:02:24,060 --> 00:02:25,120 in that first week? 50 00:02:25,120 --> 00:02:27,370 Which is when MIT students can say, oh, you know what? 51 00:02:27,370 --> 00:02:29,911 This class looks like, I think I'll go take some other class. 52 00:02:29,911 --> 00:02:32,370 So I think we've put more of our work 53 00:02:32,370 --> 00:02:37,680 into focusing our upfront making it clear what the course is 54 00:02:37,680 --> 00:02:42,150 about and trying to make sure that we are, in fact, being 55 00:02:42,150 --> 00:02:43,614 welcoming. 56 00:02:43,614 --> 00:02:45,030 RICHARD EBERHARDT: A lot of it has 57 00:02:45,030 --> 00:02:49,700 to do with being welcoming but also providing challenges 58 00:02:49,700 --> 00:02:53,060 that more people might be interested in. 59 00:02:53,060 --> 00:02:55,310 So in this case, it's not necessarily targeting women, 60 00:02:55,310 --> 00:02:57,030 but really just targeting a diverse group 61 00:02:57,030 --> 00:02:58,960 of voices in the class. 62 00:02:58,960 --> 00:03:02,930 So for this semester, the design challenge, 63 00:03:02,930 --> 00:03:06,220 we're really focusing on what the design challenge is 64 00:03:06,220 --> 00:03:07,760 in the class from day one. 65 00:03:07,760 --> 00:03:10,342 Where, in previous semesters, we talked about a little bit 66 00:03:10,342 --> 00:03:11,800 in the first couple weeks, and then 67 00:03:11,800 --> 00:03:14,942 we didn't get into it deeper until midway through. 68 00:03:14,942 --> 00:03:16,400 So in this case, this semester it's 69 00:03:16,400 --> 00:03:19,580 about decision-making in games. 70 00:03:19,580 --> 00:03:21,497 We're talking about the types of games 71 00:03:21,497 --> 00:03:23,080 many different kinds of students would 72 00:03:23,080 --> 00:03:24,680 want to play and have played. 73 00:03:24,680 --> 00:03:27,510 So it's not just that you're coming to a game course 74 00:03:27,510 --> 00:03:30,590 because you play all sorts of games, and then you find out, 75 00:03:30,590 --> 00:03:33,340 well this one's just going to be about war games. 76 00:03:33,340 --> 00:03:37,650 So talking about narrative, talking about fiction, 77 00:03:37,650 --> 00:03:39,734 also talking about strategy, talking about chance, 78 00:03:39,734 --> 00:03:41,691 and talking about all of the different elements 79 00:03:41,691 --> 00:03:44,260 they're going to explore the next semester in the beginning, 80 00:03:44,260 --> 00:03:47,190 hopefully, we'll keep them interested. 81 00:03:47,190 --> 00:03:50,416 And then also having a client in the class where they're 82 00:03:50,416 --> 00:03:52,290 actually making a game where it's going to do 83 00:03:52,290 --> 00:03:54,640 some good to somebody else. 84 00:03:54,640 --> 00:03:57,460 They're not just making a game to make a game. 85 00:03:57,460 --> 00:03:59,790 In this case, the games they're making 86 00:03:59,790 --> 00:04:03,760 are going to be used by the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate 87 00:04:03,760 --> 00:04:08,540 Centre, particularly to help policymakers to better 88 00:04:08,540 --> 00:04:12,370 understand the need to devote resources, time, and money 89 00:04:12,370 --> 00:04:14,140 to disaster preparedness. 90 00:04:14,140 --> 00:04:15,210 So it's a big topic. 91 00:04:15,210 --> 00:04:16,339 It's a timely topic. 92 00:04:16,339 --> 00:04:18,920 Climate change is being talked about a lot right now. 93 00:04:18,920 --> 00:04:23,030 MIT students like those kinds of MIT-styled engineering 94 00:04:23,030 --> 00:04:25,530 problems. 95 00:04:25,530 --> 00:04:27,490 So hopefully that also keeps a good number 96 00:04:27,490 --> 00:04:31,940 of the students keeping in the course after the first week. 97 00:04:31,940 --> 00:04:34,620 We never have a problem keeping our number high. 98 00:04:34,620 --> 00:04:36,410 Our numbers are always high. 99 00:04:36,410 --> 00:04:40,600 It's keeping the diverse number of voices high from the get-go.