Esports Engage Students at University of Michigan-Flint
Juniper slashes ping times for UM-Flint’s varsity esports team.
The 40-member, varsity esports team at the University of Michigan’s Flint campus demands high performance and low latency to compete. As the team’s coordinator, Jason Gooding, explains, the university installed a Juniper switch to bypass the campus network and link directly to 10 gig fiber. Listen for the results — and the university’s plans for a full degree academic program in the Fall of 2023.
You’ll learn
How the Juniper switch dropped ping times to single digits — giving the team a competitive edge
What academic credits are available now and in the future
The esports games the team completes in
Who is this for?
Host
Transcript
0:00 [Music]
0:05 the university of michigan-flint is
0:06 right downtown the city of flint
0:08 michigan
0:09 we are primarily a commuter campus we
0:11 have roughly 6 500 students we started
0:14 the esports program roughly as the
0:16 pandemic started we started out with 18
0:19 students from the get-go a year later in
0:22 our second year we had more than
0:24 increased by 110
0:25 we were roughly around 40 students and
0:27 we continued to grow
0:29 by definition we are flint's first and
0:31 only varsity athletics program for our
0:33 campus we brought juniper into the
0:35 esports environment primarily because
0:38 juniper is running our backbone of our
0:40 network campus-wide we've have installed
0:43 the juniper switch into our facility and
0:46 by doing this we've segregated it from
0:48 the entire network on campus and so
0:51 we're going right from our space
0:53 to a 10 gig
0:55 backbone directly to the internet the
0:57 juniper equipment connecting to the 10
0:59 gig fiber is a huge aspect for us when
1:02 esports every little bit of advantage
1:05 definitely helps and it's dropped rpm
1:07 times in most games
1:09 sometimes into single digits or into the
1:12 low teams when we compete we've decided
1:14 to go with the juniper appliance and
1:16 it's provided us with more than we could
1:18 hope for as far as performance currently
1:20 our esports team is comprised of rocket
1:23 league valorent
1:24 overwatch league of legends ts go super
1:28 smash brothers apex and the iracing
1:31 circuit
1:32 we have been able to transition into the
1:34 academic side as well so the fall of 22
1:37 will finally be able to offer a nine
1:39 credit certificate program with esports
1:41 management partnered with the school of
1:43 management on campus as well as a
1:45 communication department and with those
1:47 nine credits these students are actually
1:49 getting real world experience right now
1:51 our target goal for fall of 2023 is to
1:54 fully launch our four-year esports
1:56 degree program i'm seeing u of m flint's
1:58 esports program being very competitive
2:00 and finally being able to make a mark of
2:02 its own
2:03 amongst this environment and competition
2:05 [Music]
2:10 you
