Margaret Neely (C‘23)

Narrative Studies, Gaming, and Animation

As a freshman, I started in the SFS planning on majoring in Science, Technology, and International affairs with a focus in cybersecurity. Then, I transferred to the college and briefly majored in physics, ended up in computer science for a year, and finally made my way to IDST during our virtual year. It was after many lengthy conversations with advisors that I realized I wanted more from my education, and that my passions spanned across multiple disciplines. The IDST program was the perfect opportunity to create and pursue a course of study that inspired me to push boundaries.

From the onset of this program, I knew I wanted to focus my studies on storytelling and multimedia, and exploring different ways of expressing narratives. When I applied for this program, we were asked to outline our initial ideas for a thesis. My all-time favorite class at Georgetown has been my intro to animation class, it was definitely the biggest inspiration in forming my own major in the Interdisciplinary studies program. I later met professor Evan Barba from the Communications Culture and Tech department and was introduced to the world of Unity, a cross-platform game engine that allowed me to develop my stories in an interactive format. This program really offered me the opportunity to collaborate with my favorite professors and role models to create a project I feel so intimately connected to and proud of, and I truly believe this is an opportunity I could not find anywhere else. There are limited opportunities to study interactive media in the undergraduate curriculum, but with this program I had the agency to create not only my own course path, but also the individual courses themselves with my advisors. The non-traditional path this program offered really allowed–if not required–me to take initiative with my own studies. I felt much more ownership and intention behind the work I was doing, which encouraged me to engage with my studies even more.