This course invites students to learn and apply design principles and the user experience to a variety of digital formats, including graphic, video, and web. Through a series of open-ended projects, students will learn to produce functional and creative digital media designs integrating a variety of programs and techniques. While learning these design skills, students will also discover and deepen their own interests, generate purposeful design solutions and emulate a real-world client scenario. Students will study and evaluate digital models to guide their design decisions and appreciate best practices and trends. Each project will strive for an authentic audience to simulate a client-designer relationship so that students will learn the importance of meeting the needs of each project and engage in a feedback loop of response, reflection and revision. No previous experience is expected of students, but independent curiosity and experimentation will be elements of a successful engagement in this course.

 

Students will deepen their understanding of project management by delving into game design. Drawing inspiration from classic and modern tabletop games, students will analyze key mechanics such as turn structures, player interaction, and game balance to understand what makes a game both engaging and marketable. They will experiment with adapting and combining these elements to create original designs that feature compelling narratives and unique gameplay dynamics, while also considering their target audience. Through iterative playtesting and feedback, students will refine their ideas, demonstrating perseverance as they tackle challenges and continuously improve their designs. Alongside game development, students will explore entrepreneurial skills such as budgeting and crafting persuasive campaign materials, preparing them to successfully pitch their games for a crowdfunding campaign. Coursework will apply Scrum project management methodologies. Open to sophomores, juniors, and seniors.

 

While students utilize research and writing skills in class assignments and everyday life this seminar offers students the opportunity to select a topic of their choosing to deepen research, annotation, writing, and presentation skills. Following the research process - question and thesis development, source gathering and evaluation, note taking, outlining, and writing - students will deepen their knowledge of their topic and share their insights with their peers. Culminating in a research paper and presentation of an infographic, this course helps students understand aspects of college-level research assignments. Open to sophomores, juniors, and seniors.

 

This course is a deep dive into human persuasion and how we use communications to persuade others to do what we want or what needs to be done. We explore how the way words are said or interpreted may be more impactful than the actual words themselves, and we study messaging from a variety of perspectives and hope to understand why societal change is hard to implement. We spend time on advertising, the messaging of advertisers, and the delivery of news in a social media environment. Students should expect analysis work, reading, and active group discussions as part of this course. At the end of the course, students are expected to make a presentation of significance. Open to juniors and seniors.

 

This dynamic project-based course is designed to empower students with the essential skills of effective public speaking, rhetorical analysis, and compelling argumentation. Students will move beyond fear of the podium to become confident, clear, and persuasive communicators in a variety of real-world contexts. Through analyzing the rhetoric of historical and contemporary figures, from the power of landmark historic speeches that sparked social change to the persuasive techniques used in Super Bowl advertising, students will learn how to craft messages that inform, motivate, and move an audience to action. This course is ideal for students seeking to sharpen their voices for college, career, and civic engagement. Open to sophomores, juniors, and seniors.