Opportunities for Students
Students in the Department of Computer Science at UA Little Rock have numerous opportunities to explore, such as virtual and augmented reality.
With virtual reality, you can:
- Explore a virtual world that you can see, touch, feel.
- Demo architecture and design without the cost of physical modeling.
- Share data in powerful new ways by harnessing more than two dimensions.
With augmented reality, you can:
- Create a real world, heads up display to provide information.
- Use a virtual monitor through a headset, while still seeing the world around you.
- Interact with others also using AR and see the world differently together.
Discipline Description
Both of these fields are expanding as hardware advances rapidly reduce the cost of a VR-ready computer. On top of this, modifications such as Google Cardboard are bringing AR/VR to mobile devices. VR is already used in industry extensively in manufacturing and gaming markets with continual efforts to bring AR/VR into the modern office and home for everyday uses. It’s hard to say who will craft the iPhone of virtual reality that truly advances it to the state of modern necessity for the public, but it could easily be a student from UA Little Rock.
The Emerging Analytics Center (EAC) at UA Little Rock also has an extensive library of all the most modern hardware and software for VR and AR research, including the room-sized CAVE (Cave Automatic Virtual Environment) that surrounds you with giant 3D screens for a full, shareable VR experience. All of these products are used by students daily to develop and explore new ideas for both industry purposes and academic research. The EAC also provides grants and assistance for promising students (both undergraduate and graduate) eager to have a taste of the future of VR/AR.
The EAC is self-funded and partners with a variety of powerful industry and art developers:
- Manufacturers to explore and present new designs
- Artistic organizations seeking assistance in harnessing this new medium
- Research partnerships with other academics to explore new ideas and new combinations
- Governmental agencies seeking to find ways to read and understand data
These provide great opportunities for students to network and explore various intellectual and financial possibilities in the modern world for computer science graduates.
Job Opportunities
There is a vast selection of career opportunities within this discipline (2023):
AR/VR Engineer
Springboard.com – $165k median with top earners receiving $200k
VR Researcher
ZipRecruiter.com – $119k annually
AR Product Designer
Indeed.com – average $105k per year
UX Researcher
Indeed.com – average $131k annually
Projects
UA Little Rock’s EAC is developing a virtual-reality enabled visualizations network to thwart attacks in the electric power distribution industry.
The Emerging Analytics Center at UA Little Rock has also participated in a past project for the visualization of multidimensional marketing data. Visit the EAC website or email eacinfo@ualr.edu to learn more about past and current projects.
