Lanxiang Vocational School Opens E-Sports Major: 3-Year Program Begins with League of Legends

Lanxiang, famous for its vocational training in excavator operation, vehicle repair and culinary arts, has added a new major: e-sports. The three-year program is designed to foster interdisciplinary talent in online sports at Lanxing’s campus in Shandong province.

According to its website, Shangdong Lanxiang’s e-sports major is affiliated with the computer school under Shangdong Lanxiang Advanced Vocational School. Official registration opened in September. E-sports is listed among Lanxing’s seven schools, together with its schools of cooking, vehicle repair, engineering, welding, numerical control, hairdressing and beauty and computers.

SEE ALSO: Weibo will livestream League of Legends 2017 Global Finals

The related advertisement promises, “You will become an interdisciplinary talent in e-sports: learn to be a game referee, marketing director, e-sports athlete, club manager or a video game host (good hosts can make more than 30,000 yuan per month).”

According to the introduction, the Lanxiang E-Sports and Management Major provides both a three-year program and three-month short-term training.

The three-year program consists of elementary courses, specialty courses, actual practice and pre-job training, ensuring that “from zero to hero, a student will be ready for the position.” During the first stage of study, students will be required to learn about Multiplayer Online Battle Arenas (MOBA), League of Legends alignment and how to provide preventive support against ganking. They will also learn to choose their characters to counter the choices of their opponents; decide on an equipment buying rhythm according to the casting of each side and game environment; and to master the basic technique of monitoring their territory. During the second stage of study, students will be trained through games operated in internal training sessions, team games, upgrade games and preliminary matches for the League of Legends inter-city championship.

The three-month short-term training offers something more basic, including exploring a student’s own capabilities, teaching MOBA game concepts and League of Legends basics, such as minion farming. Student will participate in qualifying tournaments on their own to explore their gaming behavior and habits in character choice, basic operations and gameplay style. They will then forming teams according to their idiosyncrasies. Students will discuss and share their experience in main character operations, the basics of alignment and dealing with headwind or defensive characters. They will also learn the strengths and weaknesses of characters, and learn to choose characters with an emphasis on scoring in each version of the game.

On September 2, the Vocational and Continuing Education Department of the Ministry of Education announced 13 additional majors. E-Sports management was among them. Its official code is 670411, placing it in the categories of education and sports.