Meducation: A Different Approach to Learning

Jasper Caballero, Verrazzano Class of 2021, completed major in Computer Science 

Junior and senior year is the time when students begin to stress about what they are going to do for their capstone project and I was not an exception to this group. I would ask anyone of my colleagues on this topic trying to get an idea of what I should do, only to find that they also dug themselves into the same hole. It was not until I had taken Dr. Deborah Sturm’s CSC 523 Serious Gaming class that laid the seeds in what would eventually become my capstone project.

Serious Gaming is a genre of games that prioritize in providing players a different purpose to play their games other than to entertain. Some of these genres mainly involve making games to explore, educate, or simulate real life experiences in a digital environment. Of course, the game still must be fun to play to accumulate an audience, while keeping its serious aspects. That is part of the balancing act.

Just think about the worst class you had taken on campus (mine was definitely Discrete Math). Would your experience have been different if you could have learned the class’s content by playing a game? This was our goal when creating Meducation: an educational game about medication. With my partner, Jan Markus Milan, we developed a game for the nursing students at CSI about some of the medications that they will encounter in their Pharmacology class. Our game is not only visually pleasing but also implements some learning enforcement tools such as emphasizing important features of a drug and repetition of facts, among others. While the game does not accurately depict a real-life scenario, we hope that by learning the content in bite-sized pieces, it will create a strong foundation for nursing students when they start to learn about Pharmacology.

I never realized the importance of having connections until reflecting on them before graduation. The students I met on day one of the Verrazzano Orientation, and doing all those team-building exercises that one hot summer afternoon, are still my friends to this day. We would help each other out in classes and even do our community service and VELAs together. The nursing students I met in Verrazzano helped me validate some of the medications I included in our game. These people would also help me gather the data and feedback I needed to show the game’s strengths and flaws. Without their help, it would have been nearly impossible for me, a Computer Science student, to create a game about Pharmacology.

College is about discovering what you are truly passionate about, even if that passion does not relate to your major. This does not necessarily mean you should make this discovery on your own. Inspiration can take many forms; an object, a course, or even a person. In my case, it was people. Being surrounded by like-minded individuals reinforced my passion to pursue Computer Science, more specifically, web development. Having the support group of not only my friends, but the Verrazzano staff early on made it possible for me to get to this point in my career.

My advice, as generic as it sounds, is to not go it alone. There will be people around you willing to help you with your problems; you just have to find the right place to look. Luckily for me, the people at the Verrazzano Honors were readily available in my time of need. Words cannot describe how thankful I am to have met the people I’ve met and learned from the experiences I had. They have definitely helped set up the next chapter of my life post-graduation.  

Also, please do check out my game!

http://www.csdept.csi.cuny.edu/~drsturm/Meducation/