2024 Solano Advisory Board Breakout Sessions by Solano College Arts

Answer the ‘Why/What?’ question:

solanocollegearts — 2024-05-16 19:03:06 UTC

Why is this important to employers?

Why is a portfolio necessary?

How will this benefit the applicant?

What are employers looking for?

Build it into the course curriculum

solanocollegearts — 2024-05-16 19:03:30 UTC

Use it as a project (showcase, etc), group work, exhibition, rent out student union (poster sessions) panels, concurrent session, extra credit for students to support

Let the potential employers come to the students’ place of comfort and confidence

solanocollegearts — 2024-05-16 19:03:50 UTC

Maybe at a classroom or studio/workshop?

Headshots

solanocollegearts — 2024-05-16 19:05:32 UTC

Work reviewed by industry leaders

solanocollegearts — 2024-05-16 19:05:49 UTC

Have diverse industries represented!

solanocollegearts — 2024-05-16 19:07:39 UTC

For example civil service, nonprofits, teaching (in addition to tech) as avenues to applying skills learned in DMA - it's not just about the big studios, there are creative jobs within many different sectors that may not be as glamorous as say, Hollywood studios, but pay well, some even with pensions, etc

Have the event at a third space somewhere.

solanocollegearts — 2024-05-16 19:09:32 UTC

Dress for an interview - meet up on time somewhere. See your work in a different connect outside of the classroom.

Ice breaker session for students to get to know each other better and be more comfortable.

solanocollegearts — 2024-05-16 19:24:32 UTC

Students don’t know all each other; therefore some may not feel comfortable sharing their ideas or speak up when some

Bridegood Tech initiative focus group

solanocollegearts — 2024-05-16 19:25:24 UTC

What Made It Impactful? The initiative being centered around specific demographics that they felt didn't have access to certain resources in the Tech field.

what did you wish had been included: possibly a bigger sample size of participants.

Teaching a class with no prior experience/bare bones curriculum

solanocollegearts — 2024-05-16 19:26:09 UTC

What I learned: I have a lot of knowledge regardless of experience

What made it successful: connecting with students and asking them what they want to learn

What could be improved: clarity on assignments/expectations

Working on a project for class that was client based.

solanocollegearts — 2024-05-16 19:27:02 UTC

I really liked how the project was structured. My key takeaway from the experience was that starting a conversation and communication is key

Activities Geared to Students of Different Levels of Experience

solanocollegearts — 2024-05-16 20:40:00 UTC

Have options (different stations? Beginner to Experienced) for people who are curious about portfolios - people that maybe know a little bit, but need more help. And then people that already have stuff to put in. Maybe those people just want a little clean up, a little check of maybe they just want to talk to other people so like dividing these portfolios for like different levels and getting personalized feedback.

Invite Creatives in Different Fields

solanocollegearts — 2024-05-16 20:42:35 UTC

Have designers from different backgrounds - there is portfoa variety of different portfolio types - showing these different varieties will be informational and educational

Created an Immersive Meowolf-type space

solanocollegearts — 2024-05-16 21:59:42 UTC

Created an immersive space in high school

-you could kind of pick groups and teams.

I wanted to do an art team, and it was a theme where we were learning about ancient Egypt, the history and culture of ancient Egypt, and so we took storage rooms and decorated them like they were tombs, and painted them with hieroglyphics, and did lighting and music, and and wrote a play, and like it was just this kind of free form, non graded - wished that high school could be more like this because I learned a lot

Mini Design Sprint for Students

solanocollegearts — 2024-05-18 00:25:34 UTC

What made it impactful is that many students have never collaborate with other in an in-person setting and had to think

fast on their feet

Design Sprint Challenges -

solanocollegearts — 2024-05-18 00:26:21 UTC

Students may not know each other well, therefore some may not feel comfortable sharing their ideas or speak up when some

team members are not following directions or not willing to take other people’s idea into consideration

Stakeholders

solanocollegearts — 2024-05-18 00:27:11 UTC

Who will be the key players in organizing the event? Should it include other areas besides digital media arts (like photography, or film/tv) or is digital media arts broad enough?

Attendance and Publicity

solanocollegearts — 2024-05-18 00:27:56 UTC

Making it part of curriculum could increase attendance - or advertising it as a community event or larger event could also increase buy in - but maybe would make it less approachable for students?

What it means to teach a Creative Community

solanocollegearts — 2024-05-18 00:29:20 UTC

There's a difference in teaching/training a creative community versus something more "black and white" like say material science or federal law. Trends in design methods shift and change, skills and processes come in and out of demand, the perception of value of a given "market" (e.g. websites, movies, apps) may shift dramatically fairly quickly. )

Intention

solanocollegearts — 2024-05-18 00:30:12 UTC

Intention and direction may be more important than a student's portfolio

Taking Risks

solanocollegearts — 2024-05-18 00:30:35 UTC

Asuccessful path from learning to doing/producing/making (employment) includes lots of risk-taking, vulnerability, mistakes, and way-finding.

Do what you love/play to your strengths

solanocollegearts — 2024-05-18 00:31:17 UTC

From Gau - "My friend and coworker Donovan McLean is a motion controls expert (super technical genius and super nice guy) and he started in stop motion animation at CalArts. But he found his passion in continually improving various animation rigs for himself and his friends. "

Freedom to explore on your own terms

solanocollegearts — 2024-05-18 00:31:37 UTC

Giving students the room to explore, collaborate, and build, and then share their explorations on their terms with employers (rather than fitting into a pre-defined box) might be rewarding for some kinds of students.