Develop and produce publications for web and print. Photojournalism, feature writing, magazine publishing. Work with real clients. Analyze and solve complex problems.
The Bachelor of Science Degree
The Print and Web Communications specialization is offered in the four-year bachelor of science degree program. Our BSc curriculum integrates three critical dimensions of creative communication: creative management courses, studio courses, and liberal studies courses.
The BSc degree program is designed to let students interested in both business and art put their talents and abilities to work. It's a great fit for students who are both visual and verbal, have an entrepreneurial knack, and like to analyze and solve complex problems.
Course Descriptions
Core Degree Requirements
42
BS 1935 Biological Systems 3 The science of biology, its methods and its contexts provide insights into the commonalities of patterning in the natural and social worlds. Students will be introduced to organic systems and general systems theory, along with applications of these models in organizations and other social systems. Students learn concepts and approaches to scientific inquiry and taxonomy based on observation and through practical experience.
LS/HS 3235 Inventions and Progress 3 This course is an introduction to the historical study of the process of innovation and creativity underlying human technological development. Students will cover the factors and the processes that support invention, explore stories of technological development as well as consider the impact of technology on cultural forms. Active projects examine the role invention plays in creating the made and social worlds.
BS 1950 Visualizing Physics 3 This course offers a look at the patterns, mechanics, and dynamics of the physical world. This course will look at how visualization techniques are used to enhance understanding of physics concepts and mathematical relationships, as well as how these concepts and relationship aid and guide our use of visualization techniques. This course will take a problem-based approach through projects and the work of others to gain a practical understanding of these topics and issues.
BS 3850 Project Tracking 3 This course is a study of modern management techniques and systems needed to the execute a project from start to finish, to achieve predetermined objectives of scope, quality, time and budgetary cost, to the equal satisfaction of those involved. Relevant speakers, technical readings/discussions and practical work on concurrent projects underway elsewhere in the curriculum prepare the students for responsible and successful project planning and navigation in their careers.
BS 3362 Understanding Contexts 3 This course aids students in exploring context, character, and audiences in order to plan and guide success in creating Web sites. Students will study Internet trends, history, theory, and context in order to understand Web development from the perspective of both audience/user and client/business. Students use information discovery principles and questioning methods to discern context – of clients and their audiences, and designing Web sites. The course format combines studio and lecture/seminar. Students will prepare and field-test a Web site prototype and complete written and verbal responses to readings, quizzes and a paper, Students must be willing to work both solo and in teams and be flexible in participation in the various roles of planner, researcher, information architect, editor, designer, and/or developer. Prerequisite: Bachelor of Science student or permission of instructor.
Prerequisites: Bachelor of Science student or permission of instructor.
BS 3364 Experience Frameworks 3 In recent years, the term "experience" has become almost as ubiquitous as "brand" in marketing, design and advertising practice. This course will look at how user-centered design, experiential marketing, observational research, experience design and other customer-centric processes represent a movement to go beyond creating awareness or even preference to shaping behavior and creating meaningful transformations. We'll explore the works of philosophers and leading practitioners as well as learn techniques for understanding, modeling and producing experiences in multiple media and connect theory with creative practice.
BS 3025 Marketing Concepts and Analysis 3 This course will study the theory and practice of marketing. Students will discover marketing’s role in society and for organizations as well as engage in an in-depth study of the various steps in the marketing process, including research, strategy, and campaign development. Students will develop a campaign as well as analyze historic and contemporary case studies.
BS 5100 Bachelor of Science Senior Seminar 3 Students use this course to engage in broad strategies of personal marketing, career goal-setting and folio prep, and visioning one’s future. Students conduct interviews aimed at business/community people and contexts; results are framed and presented to classmates as mini-case studies. Course outcome: a personal planning document and work portfolio that establishes pathways and positioning for one’s externship, career choices, and/or graduate school opportunities. Textbook, assigned readings, and quizzes required, as is participation in guest lectures, guest-facilitated workshops, and one month of student interviewing/fieldwork.
Prerequisites: Bachelor of Science student, Senior standing or approval of instructor
BS 4010 Internship 3
Internships provide an opportunity for students to gain practical experience in a particular career area and valuable on-the-job skills. Internships may be arranged by the Director of Career Services or initiated by students. All internships must be pre-approved through the Career Services Office. For an internship to be approved, a mentor relationship and learning experience should exist beyond a simple employment opportunity. Three-credit internships require working 120 hours at the internship site and keeping a journal of hours and activities.
varying Externship or International Study 15 Externships are semester-long, full-time internships. Students work 600 hours over 15 weeks for 15 credits. The externship should be regarded as a stepping-stone toward entry into a student’s chosen profession. While faculty and staff provide assistance, the student will find, apply to, and arrange the externship. Preparation for finding an externship should begin well before the semester in which it will be registered.
Specialization Courses
12
Select four of: 12 BS 3415 Audience Analysis for Design Professionals 3 Effective management of design projects does not happen in a vacuum, nor from an ivory tower. This course is designed to delve deeply into the issues associated with three key audiences that managers of design must address: their clients, their customers, and the design field. Students will gain theoretical and practical instruction in analyzing, profiling, and addressing issues from the perspective of all three audiences. A thoughtful investigation of the differences and commonalities of these audiences—and their effects on one another—will help participants learn how to manage and produce great design.
BS 3852 Creating and Running a Business 3 This course covers the nuts and bolts of starting and managing a business from crafting a business concept, to analyzing market demand, to developing a marketing strategy, to establishing a legal entity as well as key elements of financing, budgeting, operating and growing a business. In a workshop setting, students will examine various types of arts-related and design businesses and the range of issues associated with each as well as key aspects of free-lancing, building a business firm, and growing a business operation. Students will learn through case studies and hands-on projects, all the elements of a successful business enterprise.
Prerequisites: Junior or Senior standing BS 3028 Feature Writing and Photojournalism 3 This course is an introduction to journalistic writing, specifically geared to writing for magazines. It will cover the basics of generating story ideas, selling them to magazines, going on assignment and capturing the story with words and photographs, and then turning the raw film, notes, background research, and quotes into a compelling feature article. The focus will be on using powers of observation to tell a compelling story to the appropriate audience.
BS 3414 Analyzing and Visualizing Data 3
Collecting data in vast quantities is easier that ever before, yet making sense of that data seems more than ever. This course will cover techniques of information collection and analysis with commonly available software packages, along with spreadsheets; graphs in two and three dimensions. Information architecture and graphical presentation of data will be covered.
BS 3425 Magazine Publishing 3 Magazines serve as a microcosmic example to study how creative professions fit within a changing media landscape—even in this digital era. This course will study the vibrant history, business structures, and processes of magazine publishing with a special emphasis on art direction and creative direction—how and why the visual design of magazines intersects with the business of publishing and why is it so important to understand. In this course, students will invent a hypothetical magazine title and create a portfolio-quality media kit that represents their magazine. Course instruction will consist of lectures and discussion, assigned readings, in-class and outside-of-class project work, guest speakers, and formal presentations.
Liberal Arts Requirements
27
LS/HS 1501 Creative and Critical Thinking 3 This course is designed to help students enhance their own creativity as they apply the various areas of visual study. Various problem-solving techniques will be examined. Topics explored include creativity: what enhances it and what can inhibit it; how to confront the creative void and take the next step; creativity and time; creatively working with others; and the creative mind, the critical mind, and how they can work together.
BS 2000 Writing for Organization and Communication 3 This course features extensive writing practice directed toward clear presentation of ideas and information in non-fiction writing. The assignments follow a variety of professional and formal models, such as descriptive prose, speechwriting, television narration, magazines or newsletters, and internet-based communication. Tools for prewriting, revising, and editing are strengthened, and a range of choices is broadened as students read, produce their own writing, and review and critique the written communications of others across a variety of media. Several assignments assume a client and audience are involved and aim toward tailoring prose style to the appropriate situation.
HS 1711 Symbolic Images, Objects, and Places 3 This course examines the creation, evolution, and meaning of symbolic structures. Introductory presentations focus on discovering symbols embedded within complex Renaissance altar paintings (Jan van Eyck’s Adoration of the Lamb, Hieronymus Bosch’s Garden of Early Delights). There follows several lectures on symbols invented to individualize the applied arts, as seen in modernist works by graphic designers (Henri Toulouse-Lautrec to the Absolut Vodka campaign), book illustrators (Aubrey Beardsly) documentary photographers (Margaret Bourke-White), engineers (Gustav Eiffel) and architects (Frank Lloyd Wright). After midterm, the course investigates persistent and aggressive animal imagery, prehistoric to the present (cave paintings to Susan Rothenburg), then deals with the sacred circle (Stonehenge to Richard Long), the intellectual grid (Imperial Rome to Piet Mondrian), and the mask (Native Northwest Coast to Andy Warhol).
HS 3220 Media Analysis 3 This course embraces and explores many forms of mass communication, applying theories to see how best to understand, use and possibly create everything from a news photo to a video game, or from a television commercial to a political website. Students will apply various kinds of media theory to a variety of examples, testing the abstract with the concrete. Additionally, the course assumes that knowing the conventions and traditions of media design, direction, and/or production is useful. Assignments include exams, short papers interpreting media messages, presentations exploring media theory, and a class project in audience measurement of media use or opinion.
BS 3115 Reading for Ideas 3 This course focuses on reading as an inspirational element in the pursuit of life goals and on the personal reflection that often ensues. Discussions will address the interdependence of personal, community, and professional life; the appropriation of the ideas of others; and the processing of memory. Students will read assigned fiction readings, keep a visual journal, and present a review of a book of their choice.
BS 3350 Cultural Systems 3 Through conversations with notable individuals from our community, selected readings, and discussions, this course will examine some of the influences and institutions that form the fabric of our culture and its citizens. Some of these influences and/or institutions are ancient, others modern, some formal, others informal. All are pervasive and influential. It is through stories that cultural values and emotional intelligence are transmitted. Listen carefully as community members share, through their stories, how they have been influenced in their personal journeys.
BS 3320 Presentation and Debate 3 Presentations are at the heart of real world communication in business, science, art, design, and media. Many of our everyday tasks either are derived from presentations or eventually lead to them. This course guides students in planning, designing, and delivering presentations to audiences of various sizes and psychographics. Content will be tailored as much as possible to students’ relevant studio projects and/or internship needs such that course activities are made more meaningful. Discussion of how graphic design adds value to presentations by effectively embracing aesthetics, clarity, visual-systems approaches, and drama. Students will spend at least one month acquiring principles of how to deliver an effective speech as well as practicing putting what was learned into immediate action. Storytelling, argument/negotiation/debate, and presentation of self (informally, for example in networking contexts) are each covered in one-week modules.
BS 3354 Futures for Society and Individuals 3 This interdisciplinary course explores changes and trends, along with technological and social forces that will shape society, your life, and work. Subjects covered will include the experience and framing of time, individual pasts and key milestones for paving future paths, understanding change, time systems and artifacts, planning with many scenarios (there is no one future), and “inventing the future.” The subjects discussed in class will become source material to be applied to a final project in your preferred media.
Select one of: 3 HS 3318 Cultural Anthropology 3 Through discussion, lectures, the Internet, and intermedia exercises, students will focus on similarities and differences in the global village. Participants will examine kinship, cultural change, economics, religion, art and political systems in selected world cultures. The subdisciplines of archaeology, linguistics, and physical anthropology will also be tools of analysis.
HS 3312 Visual Ethnography 3 Students in this course do not need to be an expert in any particular media, but they must be open to experiencing different cultural environments through the eye of a lens. This course will explore culture using film, video, and photography. Students will use the lens to visually analyze kinesic/proxemic behaviors, as well as to interview and to become participant observes in culture with a camera rather than a pen. Methodologies and current issues involved in this approach to culture, both for the social scientist and the artist/designer, will be established by student viewing of historical documentary and visual ethnographic works both in and outside the classroom.
Studio Requirements
27
FDN 1111 Foundation: 2D 3 This course is an introduction to creative thinking that develops skills in research, observation, interpretation, and self-expression. There is an emphasis on learning new ways to read and see the world and how to report on it. Students learn basic two-dimensional principles through the use of various media, tools, materials, and processes. As a result, students develop a visual and verbal language for analyzing, organizing, shaping, and communicating two-dimensional form and meaning.
BS 3825 Client Studio 3 In the professional world, projects are successfully completed through the efforts of teams by effective leadership, collaboration, planning, innovation, structure, and flexibility. In this course, students will experience the processes and approaches that are used while working with a team on real-world client projects such as Web sites, multimedia presentations, and environmental design. Coaches will serve as mentors to guide teams in the project’s process throughout the semester. (This course is open to second-year Bachelor of Science students and to Bachelor of Fine Arts students with Junior or Senior standing)
BS 3340 Visual Thinking 3 Our thoughts, perceptions, memories, and knowledge are made up of mental images and models that we create and carry with us. These visualizations help us gain a sense of place, being and understanding. The visualizations we create offer maps, explanations, and narratives to the audiences we wish to communicate with. They help us provide understanding to others. This series of two workshops will delve into topics of visual thinking and forms of visualization. The first five-week workshop will explore the design and use of maps to provide information and understanding. The second ten-week workshop will explore visual narrative and storytelling. This course will also introduce students to the pre-production animation process.
varying Personal Program BFA Studio Courses (select six) 18
BSc students select 6 BFA Studio courses to customize their degree to their interests.
Electives
9
varying Electives 9
BSc students choose 3 additional liberal arts or studio courses as elective credits.
Total Credits
117
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