DS courses must satisfy at least one of the following areas:
- Integrate digital media as tools for research and dissemination in traditional scholarship
- Examine cultural, social, ethical, or theoretical implications of new media technologies
- Apply digital technologies to practical applications involving problem-based learning
- Develop knowledge and skills in new media and multimedia composition
Fall 2025
Digital Studies Program Offerings
50:209:101 Introduction to Digital Studies
Introduction to Digital Studies provides students with a space to tinker with digital tools and also to develop critical vocabularies for analyzing digital objects. The class begins by examining some of the historical roots of digital technologies and then moves on to some key terms in digital studies: networks, interfaces, code, digital narratives, and physical computing. The class examines the history and cultural significance of digital technology while also experimenting with how to write, design, and make with those same tools. Students in the class use Twine to create interactive stories, Audacity to create audio compositions, and Arduino circuit boards to build physical computing projects. No technological expertise is required.
50:209:130 Evolution of Gaming and Esports
The global community of video gaming and esports is a multibillion-dollar industry. But how did it evolve? In this course, you will discover the history of games and spectator sports. You will track that history up to the current moment, and in the process learn what makes the esports and gaming industry so unique. This course will cover topics such as defining the difference between esports and gaming, reviewing the current esports market and industry, and exploring the various moments in gaming history that led to the interactive spectacles that stream every day on Twitch.
50:209:210 Multimedia Thinking
Multimedia thinking is a way of making arguments and telling stories using digital media production tools. Multimedia thinking cultivates a transmedia perspective and involves the convergence of text, graphics, audio, and video, and the distribution of these assets over various media. Media may include video and sound, text, animation, still images, audio, or any form of non-physical media. Ideas are presented in a variety of formats including videos, comics, electronic literature, sound installations, remixes, mash-ups or video games. The course will begin with a theoretical and critical examination of media to prepare for their own digital media creations.
50:209:230 Creative Coding
This course serves as a hands-on introduction to programming using a variety of coding languages including: Unity3D, C#, Processing, and JavaScript while also exploring “computer logic.” Students will come away understanding the affordances and constraints of computation as a tool and as a medium for expression. Readings, along with other supplemental video lectures, will serve as the basis for the theoretical side of the class. Here, we will step away from the lines of code and consider the broader concepts of programmatic thought: operating in discreet values, thinking in variables and functions, and some philosophical and artist implications for symbology, abstraction, and narrative. (Listed on the Course Scheduling System as Computational Thinking)
50:209:309 Constructing the Moving Image
“Constructing the Moving Image” provides students with conceptual, formal, aesthetic, and technical approaches to reconsider film, videos, and animation within the context of emerging digital forms. The class culminates in a project where students have the opportunity to build a 3D interactive scene in the Unity game engine.
50:209:401 Digital Studies Capstone
Required of all students in the Digital Studies program, the capstone course involves working with a faculty advisor on a digital project designed and executed by the student. Students are also required to teach a 1-hour workshop based on a digital technology they have used or investigated in the course of the project.
50:209:305 Internship in Digital Studies
Application of digital skills in a position as a digital lab or project assistant for the Rutgers-Camden Digital Studies Center. Individually designed and evaluated experience under supervision of intern adviser. Commitment of at least 30 hours per credit/100 hours for 3 Credits.
Interdisciplinary Major Electives
The following courses can be counted towards the Digital Studies Major and Minor.
- 50:080:264 Digital Photography I
- 50:080:265 Digital Photography II
- 50:080:279 Animation Fundamentals
- 50:080:332 Graphic Design II
- 50:080:386 Computer Animation I
- 50:080:387 Computer Animation II
- 50:082:354 Contemporary Art
- 50:700:302 Sound And Image
- 50:730:240 Debate Ethical Issues Across Disciplines
- 50:750:322 3d Digital Printing
- 50:965:125 Introduction to Video and Film
- 50:989:302 Technical Communications
- 50:989:317 Writing Wikipedia
- 50:989:390 Special Topics – Digital Game Writing and Development
- 52:135:201 Intro to Business Computing
- 52:623:302 IT And Project Management
- 52:630:361 Digital Marketing Strategy