Liberal Education

Though Liberal Education is a well-established form of education internationally (with a long tradition foremost in the United States), Gotland University is the first school to implement LE in Sweden.

We experience the benefits of liberal learning by pursuing intellectual work that is honest, challenging, and significant, and by preparing ourselves to use knowledge and power in responsible ways. Liberal learning is not confined to particular fields of study.

The ability to think, to learn, and to express oneself both rigorously and creatively, the capacity to understand ideas and issues in context, the commitment to live in society, and the yearning for truth are fundamental features of our humanity.

A truly liberal education is one that prepares us to live responsible, productive, and creative lives in a dramatically changing world. It is an education that fosters a well-grounded intellectual resilience, a disposition toward lifelong learning, and an acceptance of responsibility for the ethical consequences of our ideas and actions.

[The Association of American Colleges & Universities]

 
We’ve chosen this route because we believe that human beings are creatures of context, not objective machines. We strive to educate people and not tools.

For more information on liberal learning (in Swedish), check out The Gotland University website. Svenska Dagbladet wrote a great piece about Liberal Education earlier this year. For a great writeup in English, check out The Guardian’s rercent “Liberal arts offer something completely different“.

What does this mean in practice?

Your three years here equals 180 ECTS (högskolepoäng), yielding a Bachelors Degree in Game Design & Graphics or Game Design & Programming. You always read at least two courses in parallel (50% pace), affording you more time for reflection and increasing the opportunity for different courses to enrich each other. The 180 credits are partitioned thusly:

• 90 ECTS (60 weeks) are mandatory main subjects / program specific courses.
• 67.5 ECTS (45 weeks) are electable courses (in-depth, broadening or GEM-courses).
  15 ECTS (2 weeks) must be of a different main subject entirely.
• 22.5 ECTS (15 weeks) are mandatory GEM-courses.

GEM-courses

GEM is a generic name for joint University courses (högskolegemensamma kurser). These courses are taken with other program students on campus, so it an opportunity to work with students from other subjects.

Three courses are mandatory: “Communication in text and speech”, the themed course “Sustainable development from an economical, social and ecological perspective”, and a third, which you choose yourself. There will also be a number of optional GEM-courses; “Entrepreneurship”, “Ethics And Humanity”, “Communication In Colour And Shape”, “Project Management And Leadership” – to name a few.

Electable courses

The student is free to pick and choose from the courses offered at the University. One can supplement the main subject with studies in a completely different area, for example a course in business economics or history as a supplement for studies in industrial design or biology, or vice versa. The student can also choose to delve deeper into their main subject or pick a GEM-course.

The fall term of the third year is comprised entirely of optional courses – a good opportunity for those wanting to study a some courses at a different school or abroad.

Two of the electable courses must be in a different main subject. This means that if you’re attending a technical education you should take at least two courses of 7.5 ECTS in Humanities or Civics. The purpose of this is to broaden the students perspective and to meet students and teachers from a different tradition than their own main subject.

Academic Guidance & Personal Development

To help you make sense of all your options and tailor your education, help out with specific assignments or discuss your future plans, GAME offers all our students personal guidance and tutoring.

Guidance (vägledning) is a term describing a plan in relation to a long-term goal. This long-term goal should, in your case, be rearing towards a degree with a broad base of competence where you can work in the field you wanted to! Maybe you’re looking for a specific position with a game company in the future, but you’re not sure what courses you need to be able to fill the position well? Guidance is also there for you to have the possibility to tailor your own education, and through that get an understanding of the knowledge that is required of you.

Tutoring (handledning) is a term more descriptive of the short-term goals, without losing focus of the defined long-term goals. Under tutoring we find, for instance, individual help with assignments, but also help picking courses for the coming semester.

For more information please review our policy document for vägledning (Swedish, PDF).

Whatever your need is, assistance is readily available directly from this site! Students are given access to our reservation system, allowing them to book time slots with our teachers or reserve equipments and rooms.

Personal Development Plan

Your PDP is in conjunction with your presence at supervision- and guidance meetings, a plan of action to secure your academic progress.

The purpose of the PDP is to help you identify your own strengths and weaknesses. Enabling you to use your time here for studying in the best possible way: by creating a sense of self that leads to purposefulness. Working with the PDP gives you an opportunity to formally reflect on your studies and evaluate if these are helping you as a student and helping you reach your desired goals.

A template PDP is available here.