Learn to make your own video game! Get professional skills coding in Unity! Design your own game art, music and narratives! Get college application and financial aid support! Score a mentorship or internship!

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URBAN ARTS' School of Interactive Arts (SIA) is a FREE multi-year pre-college program in digital game design. We teach high school students the art and science of game development, a field full of opportunity but lacking in diversity.

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PLAY! DESIGN! CREATE! MEET OTHER GAMERS! We prepare high schoolers for college and career. We use game design to teach computer science and high-level coding. We also offer students pre-professional skills in collaboration, project management and entrepreneurship. Everyone makes a digital piece for their college portfolio.

 

Our mission is to inspire students from low-income communities to access their creativity and harness technology, generating lifelong success through personal growth, exceptional educations and state-of-the-art careers.

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SIA is completely FREE to eligible students.

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We emphasize success from high school to college to career through these powerful programs:

 

MASTERY / We teach the art and technology of digital game development online and at our Flatiron Learning Lab in New York City. Accepted students can choose to participate for up to 3 years, leveling up their skills and making new games each year.

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COLLEGE ACCESS / We provide private-school-level college-access services and ensure our students earn the maximum in scholarships. 100% of our Advanced students matriculate to college. They've earned $17M in scholarships since 2017!

 

CAREER PREPARATION / We connect our alumni to mentorships and internships at leading media and technology companies, generating access and exposure for a new diverse talent pipeline.

 

GAMING PATHWAYS / With NYC Mayor Eric Adams and City College on New York (CCNY), we launched the first ever, 4-year, public-option Digital Game Design degree to provide underrepresented students accessible STEAM pathways and to graduate them without debt.  High schools in Upper Manhattan and the Bronx interested in joining this initiative can learn more here.