ORLANDO, Fla. — Call it "geek speak" if you’d like, but a group of handpicked high school students in Central Florida are returning to the classroom next week with new high-tech skills that blend gaming with coding.

What You Need To Know

  • 16 local students were selected to participate in a STEAM camp this summer

  • The camp is organized by video game maker Electronic Arts

  • Program leaders said that several alumni have been hired by the company

Lake Brantley High School student Madalyn Propst was one of 16 students selected to take part in Electronic Arts’ “Get In The Game” STEAM Camp this Summer.

Students had a chance to learn directly from EA’s team of professional game developers, who work on products including Madden NFL, PGA Tour, and others.

In the free, week-long camp, students learned advanced coding skills to develop and build functional video games.

EA officials said the program is designed to focus on computer science lessons, hands-on problem solving, and inspirational presentations, designed to unlock students’ potential.

WATCH: See the video player above to watch the full story of how EA Sports’ “Get In The Game” STEAM Camp is inspiring students to consider high-tech jobs in the future.

EA Sports Tiburon has been in Central Florida since 1994, moving in recent years from Maitland to Creative Village in downtown Orlando.

Jocel Thornhill, director of Operations and Program Management at EA Tiburon, said the company created the camp in 2018 with the goal of building and diversifying a workforce in Central Florida, especially for women and non-binary professions who are largely underrepresented in the industry.

“Here at our EA Studio, we have employees who work across all aspects of games — whether design, creating concepts behind the game and coding the games, to marketing the games,” Thornhill said. “One key thing we have been working on actively, with the city of Orlando and partners at OEP, and partnering with universities like the University of Central Florida, Valencia College, and other schools in the Central Florida and North Florida area, is to make sure they understand the talent we need at EA and we can create those partnerships so we can ultimately recruit those individuals into our program.”

The “Get In The Game” STEAM Camp has already produced multiple interns and full-time employees, Thornhill said. To date the Orlando camp has produced five interns and two full-time employees.

Worldwide, EA hired 353 student interns and 175 recent graduates, with 42% of all interns becoming full-time employees.