WILTSHIRE College & University Centre’s cutting edge Tech Trowbridge digital learning hub has had its teaching capacity doubled to keep pace with demand from students wanting to study there.
Just a year after the hub was launched at the Trowbridge campus the college has invested more than £220,000 to convert a teaching space into an extension with another 24 work stations.
It also has a breakout meeting area and will be fully connected to Tech Trowbridge’s theatre-style games arena and its broadcast facilities.
Owain Milford, Head of Faculty, Creative Arts, Media & Performance said the demand for the new Esports courses launched last year has prompted the new investment.
“I’m very excited because we’ve mirrored the design of Tech Trowbridge with another Esports space,” he said. “It has the same modern look with high spec computers for the complex media tasks our students will be undertaking.
“What is really pleasing is that it demonstrates continued growth, we’ve had one year here and already we need to expand.”
Although the demand for the college’s Levels 2 and 3 Esports is behind the expansion, the new area will benefit many creative and digital students as well. “It will primarily benefit Esports students using it but we’ll see creative media production students in there as well, so that’s games development, film digital media and graphic and audio design,” said Owain.
He said the college is already considering how it can continue to expand Tech Trowbridge as it gets ready to meet even greater demand, with record numbers of prospective students expected at college open events next month.
“We will be looking at how we can find space for teaching subjects like cybersecurity or creative computing because that’s where the demand is going to come from,” he said.
He said the expansion and the new planning shows how the college is responding to the changing career landscape in Wiltshire being fuelled by a demand for digital skills. “It’s a digital world now and we need to be providing the skills our students need to navigate it and be successful,” he said. “This whole initiative is being driven by our response to the need for these digital skills.”
He believes the success of the Esports courses, which not only teach gaming and games development but business, marketing and planning skills, will help parents understand that the subject isn’t a soft option.
“Parents can see this is a serious subject when they walk into Tech Trowbridge,” said Owain. “I think the spaces help, they can see the level of technology involved and when they have the course explained to them they do get it.
“We are expecting to see students at the end of our first two-year courses go on to specialised higher education Esports courses as well as IT and media production – and others will find different pathways using the skills that they’ve developed.
“We’re building a strong connection with Staffordshire University, which runs an Esports degree course. They provided a judge for an Esports competition we held at the end of last year and I’m sure we’ll have students going there next year.”
With Tech Trowbridge now a year old, the confidence instilled by the clamour to study there means it will be playing a bigger role in the community in the coming year. “We’ve had a year to find our feet and this is the year where we want to be a bit louder,” said Owain. “We want to hold more events and activities so we have more visibility. We will be working on how we can generate business engagement as well because this facility is something to be proud of and it will help build a digital workforce for the future.”
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