Erika Mesh Headshot

Erika Mesh

Senior Lecturer

School of Interactive Games and Media
Golisano College of Computing and Information Sciences

Office Hours
See https://tinyurl.com/esmvcs-rit-schedule
Office Location

Erika Mesh

Senior Lecturer

School of Interactive Games and Media
Golisano College of Computing and Information Sciences

Bio

Erika S. Mesh is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Interactive Games and Media (IGM) at the Rochester Institute of Technology. Her primary interests center on software process improvement (SPI), team dynamics & project management, and OO development - particularly for projects in specialized domains.

Within IGM, she teaches the BS GDD intro programming classes and works with MS GDD students on learning to evaluate and improve their game development processes.

Currently Teaching

IGME-105
4 Credits
This course introduces students within the domain of game design and development to the fundamentals of computing through problem solving, abstraction, and algorithmic design. Students will learn the basic elements of game software development, including problem decomposition, the design and implementation of game applications, and the testing/debugging of their designs.
IGME-106
4 Credits
This course furthers the exploration of problem solving, abstraction, and algorithmic design. Students apply the object-oriented paradigm of software development, with emphasis upon fundamental concepts of encapsulation, inheritance, and polymorphism. In addition, object structures and class relationships comprise a key portion of the analytical process including the exploration of problem structure and refactoring. Intermediate concepts in software design including GUIs, threads, events, networking, and advanced APIs are also explored. Students are also introduced to data structures, algorithms, exception handling and design patterns that are relevant to the construction of game systems.
IGME-202
3 Credits
In this course, students will learn to create visually rich interactive experiences. It is a course in programming graphics and media, but it is also a course on the relationship between ideas and code. Students will explore topics in math and physics by building programs that simulate and visualize processes in the natural world. Assignments will include major programming projects, such as building a virtual world inhabited by digital creatures that display observable behaviors.
IGME-601
3 Credits
This course examines the individual and group roles of the development process model within the game design and development industry. Students will transform design document specifications into software and hardware needs for developers, testers, and end users. Students will examine team dynamics and processes for technical development, content development, testing, deployment, and maintenance. Students will explore the design process through the deconstruction of the game industry's software lifecycle model.
IGME-680
3 Credits
This course will allow students to work as domain specialists on teams completing one or more large projects over the course of the semester. The projects will be relevant to experiences of the interactive games and media programs, but they will require expertise in a variety of sub-domains, including web design and development, social computing, computer game development, multi-user media, human-computer interaction and streaming media. Students will learn to apply concepts of project management and scheduling, production roles and responsibilities, and their domain skill sets to multidisciplinary projects. Students will complete design documents, progress reports and final assessments of themselves and their teammates in addition to completing their assigned responsibilities on the main projects.
IGME-799
1 - 6 Credits
The student will work independently under the supervision of a faculty adviser on a topic not covered in other courses.

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