Using Esports to Teach Career Education

The field of Esports is growing rapidly across the world and has recently entered the education sector as a valid way to expose students to hundreds of different careers. As schools are continually looking for ways to engage and motivate students, esports is an amazing way to do so!

What is Esports?

Esports turns online gaming into a spectator sport. It mimics the experience of watching a professional sporting event, except instead of watching a physical event, spectators watch video gamers compete against each other.

Esports players can have audiences up to 99 million viewers! (Compare this to the NHL Stanley Cup which had 8.7 million viewers, and the NBA finals which had 20 million viewers.)

How Does Esports Fit into Education?

Because this is such a growing field, there are hundreds of careers that work with the esports industry from several career pathways. As educators, it is our job to expand the career horizons for our students and esports is a fun and creative way to do so. Below are just a few career paths in esports.

Esports Medicine

This field is booming from doctors, psychologists, surgeons and eye doctors. This article from Mayo Clinic gives more details. Teachers are now integrating this field into their health science courses.

Esports Business

From marketing to project management, esports provides a large amount of careers for students to explore. To learn more about curriculum that teaches students about business careers in esports click here.

Esports Production

Esports producers, event planners and sports casters are all very popular careers. Many colleges are now offering esports degrees. Read here about Full Sail University’s degree in this field as they have the largest esports arena on a college campus in the US.

Esports and Game Design

Many schools are integrating esports into game design and computer science courses to help motivate students in this field. STEM Fuse offers a terrific esports resource at no cost to schools.

Conclusion

As we incorporate esports into business, computer science, game design, STEM, health, IT and multimedia pathways, it is important to have a project-based approach so that students can begin to build artifacts to showcase to colleges and internships their achievements. Having a platform to store these artifacts is crucial!  STEM Fuse offers students and teachers a free place to store these for life.  Students can keep updating their resume to really exhibit their skillsets. This Xleap platform also connects students to colleges and careers in their chosen field.

As esports is such a booming field that more and more students are interested in, it makes sense to integrate it into the career pathways that schools have to offer.