First year ETC students at Lightswitch

On 2026 West Coast Trip, ETC Students Explored Everything California Has To Offer

By Hannah Kinney-Kobre Email Hannah Kinney-Kobre

ETC West Coast
First-year ETC students pose with Professor Chris Klug and Naughty Dog Studio Head & Head of Creative Neil Druckmann, who graduated from the program in 2005

Each year, first-year students at Carnegie Mellon University’s Entertainment Technology Center (ETC) travel to California to visit studios, agencies, and technology companies across all different fields of entertainment technology. This year’s West Coast Trip took students to Los Angeles and San Francisco for five straight days of company visits and networking opportunities.

Students pose for a group photo in the motion capture studio at Activision
Students pose for a group photo in the motion capture studio at Activision

The trip started in Los Angeles on January 5th, 2026 with students kicking off the trip with visits to companies working in games, advertising, film, and creative technology. On the first day, students peeked behind-the-scenes of “Call of Duty” at Activision and then learned how the game was marketed at PETROL Advertising. They visited indie studios FUN-GI and That’s No Moon, and received a crash course in virtual production and experience design at Active Theory and Halon Entertainment.

Students learn about sound design while visiting Sony Pictures Entertainment’s backlot
Students learn about sound design while visiting Sony Pictures Entertainment’s backlot

On the second day, students traveled far and wide to Pasadena, Culver City, Santa Monica, and Irvine, visiting companies including Infinity Ward, Naughty Dog, Riot Games, MobilityWare, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Magnopus, Scenario Global, and THG Creative. The visit to Naughty Dog was made particularly special because ETC alum and Naughty Dog Studio Head & Head of Creative Neil Druckmann made an appearance, spending close to an hour talking to students about his career and giving them advice on how to make the most of their time at the ETC.

That evening, students returned to the hotel for the Los Angeles alumni reception, where they got a chance to connect with graduates of the program now working at companies like Gardens Interactive, Sony, Santa Monica Studio, Walt Disney Imagineering, and Respawn Entertainment. Alumni were generous with their time and talked late into the evening with students, even hanging out in the lobby with them long after the reception ended.

Students and staff spent the third day of the trip on buses heading up the coast to San Francisco, stopping at In-and-Out for a traditional California lunch.

Students pose in a “Star Wars” themed room at Industrial Light & Magic
Students pose in a “Star Wars” themed room at Industrial Light & Magic

The next morning students hit the streets of San Francisco bright and early, visiting even more companies. One group of students toured Industrial Light & Magic, where they learned about all the tech that goes into making “Star Wars” films; some visited game studios like Never Forget Games, Roblox, and Visual Concepts and saw how all different kinds of games are made; others glimpsed of the future of AR and VR technologies and location-based entertainment at companies like Google, Tilt Five, Ethereal Matter, and Lightswitch.

They returned to the hotel in the evening to participate in the San Francisco alumni reception, talking to graduates from the program now working at companies like Meta, Electronic Arts (EA), Google, Roblox, and Apple. Ian McCullough, a member of the ETC’s very first graduating class, even got up on stage to talk to students towards the end of the night.

“I’m a member of the class of ‘01. There were 7 of us who graduated 25 years ago, when there were no masters of entertainment technology,” McCullough said. “For those of you who are students now, us as alumni are here to give you those connections so that as you pave the way for whatever the future’s going to be, you have a helping hand to lift up from the past.”

Students pose in front of the sign on Meta’s campus
Students pose in front of the sign on Meta’s campus

The final day of the trip featured visits to game studios Digital Eclipse and Electronic Arts (EA), the animation-focused Baobab Studios, tech-forward design agency IDEO, delivery robotics company Serve Robotics, and social technology company Meta’s Product and Sound teams. Across these visits, students learned about preserving video game history, developing sports games, creating interactive films and games, designing brand experiences, and understanding how large technology projects are built and managed.

After five days of nonstop travel, students returned to the hotel and got some much needed rest before flying to Pittsburgh to begin their first semester working on ETC project teams. After a week of company visits and conversations, they brought back plenty of inspiration with them.

Header Image: First-year ETC students pose with the team at location-based entertainment company Lightswitch's San Francisco office