Langston ’26 grew up in a family that valued creativity. His mom played clarinet, and his brother played in the school marching band. Langston had interests in music as well, among about a million other things. But above all, Langston knew when he got to high school that his calling was programming.
“My school had a computer science pathway, graphic design, video editing and game design,” he said. “Whenever I could, I would take those classes.”
When he heard about a school in Appalachia with low cost and a computer science major from his school counselor, he was all in.
Langston’s desire to learn programming and computer science stems from his family’s interest in video games. Describing them as a “Nintendo family,” Langston said growing up with games and playing them with his family was a big motivation in learning to make games himself.
“I’m pretty sure I learned how to hold a controller before I learned how to walk,” he said.
Langston isn’t just a computer science major, though. Music has been a constant in his life, much like video games. He followed his brother in joining his school’s marching band. This perhaps unlikely connection between music and computer science has been nurtured at Berea, where he’s pursuing a computer science major and an electronic composition minor. He’s also a member of the Music Department’s Audio and Visual (AV) team.
Computer science is more competitive than most majors, Langston said. In his first year, classes were so full he couldn’t take a single course in computer science, despite declaring it as an exploratory academic major. This forced him into general education courses and other prerequisites, which he thinks ultimately helped him the longer he stayed at Berea and encountered more challenging courses. Among these courses was GSTR 110, the most difficult course he had to take.
“I wrote more in my first semester at Berea than I ever did in kindergarten to 12th grade,” he added.
Now in his junior year, Langston is well on his way to completing his degree in computer science and has taken many different classes in the major. He recalls how dense and difficult the courses in the major can be: A lot of work in and out of class, moving on from concept to concept in a week, group projects, labs, quizzes and exams. He says it can feel overwhelming, but the major’s faculty build on concepts and do their best to teach them in a way that feels linear and consistent.
It feels like a video game. I’m building up my repertoire of abilities, so-to-speak, and combining them to produce what I want and what my teacher wants.
Langston ’26
“It feels like a video game. I’m building up my repertoire of abilities, so-to-speak, and combining them to produce what I want and what my teacher wants.”
Following college, Langston hasn’t decided if he wants to work independently or apply to a company to make video games, although he would prefer to go it alone. In his career path, he described both pros and cons to working independently and joining the corporate gaming industry.
“Working independently is like, ‘When the [money] bag is there you have to chase the bag,’ even if it’s not convenient,” he explained. “Working corporate is more predictable. Predictability is very safe, and a lot of people like predictability, and I think that’s fine. I don’t know, I’m split between the two mindsets. Whatever happens, happens!”
Even though Langston’s plan is to make video games, that is far from all a computer science graduate can do for a career. Langston says he’s keeping the door open for wherever his degree takes him. Thanks to his working experience at Berea, the flexibility of his future career path is vast—from careers in the audio and visual field to library science.
Along with the daily struggles and liveliness of the Berea experience, his computer science courses and his work with the AV team, Langston continues to share his love of gaming with others on campus, including being co-president of the Fighting Game Club. Overall, from music to video games and the library to the sound booth, Langston’s time at Berea has been worth it, he says.
“I feel pretty satisfied with my decision to come here. I wouldn’t trade it for anything else.”
