Today was a big day for both the Firstborn and the Next Gen cohort of the Masters of Digital Media (MDM) Program on the Great Northern Way Campus (GNWC). Today, the Firstborn cohort had their first opportunity to pitch a student-led project for the following semester. Today, the Next Gen cohort presented their final Building Virtual Worlds projects and thus completed all requirements for their first semester of the MDM program.

Although the semester doesn’t officially end until tomorrow (and many of the Firstborn cohort still have work to be completed before Friday’s final deadline) today felt like the end of a long journey for many of the Firstborn students. The successful presentation of all three proposed student-led projects meant that the MDM administration was able to give them all a greenlight for next semester. This came as somewhat of a surprise for the Firstborns who had been told that the final decision to accept student-let projects was not to have been made for some weeks yet. All three projects are very exciting proposals – two involving video games and one a hardware-based, interactive advertising prototype. All three teams are focused on creating something truly amazing – it will be great to see what they come up with in the new semester.

There are still many ‘firsts’ happening at the GNWC (the MDM director of student services, Christa Ovenell likes to say that she can’t wait until May 2009, once everything has been done at least once). Tomorrow afternoon will be the first end of semester Christmas party held in the Centre for Digital Media (CDM) attended by two cohorts of in-house students, celebrating everything that has been accomplished during the fall 2008 semester. It’s a ‘first’ that everyone will be happy to partake in.

Ashley Blacquiere is a Firstborn MDM student.  'In Silico' is Latin for 'via a computer simulation'.