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Topic: need career guidance: designer/programmer (Read 455 times) |
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bernd
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need career guidance: designer/programmer
« on: Apr 2nd, 2003, 10:19am » |
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Hi. I just joined. I would appreciate some advice regarding furthering my education as a designer/programmer.
I am currently a self-taught Flash designer/developer after receiving a four-year degree in traditional graphic design 2002. My interest in programming in the context of visual art/communication has been growing over the years. While I have reached advanced levels in ActionScript, I still lack official training in programming and interaction design. I am currently employed as a Flash developer and am experiencing day to day web development activity. I am looking for ways to move forward, creatively, technically and professionally. I am now faced with various possibilities of moving forward:
1. carrying on with self - study (e.g. playing with Processing and acquiring further skills e.g. JAVA)
2. applying at an MA Interaction Design course (e.g. Ivrea, MIT, Hyperwerk ...).
If I go with option 1 (self-study), what are the technologies I should look at? Remember I would like to be active in the 'creative' applications of programming.
In the case of option 2 (MA course), what are the benefits of such a course? I am aware of the cost of Ivrea. The problem is I am currently based in South Africa and am not sure what the chances of financing such a course would be overseas (graduated my degree with cum laude: chances for scholarships/bursaries?)
I know there are a lot of issues here, and I don't expect answers, only good advice. Thanks. Bernd
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Martin
    
 
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Re: need career guidance: designer/programmer
« Reply #1 on: Apr 2nd, 2003, 3:49pm » |
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follow where your heart is. having graduated cum laude, i think you're good to go for academe. there are always chances for scholarships. you'll just have to find that right chance and the right school 
happy hunting!
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pollux
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Re: need career guidance: designer/programmer
« Reply #2 on: Apr 2nd, 2003, 7:22pm » |
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bernd,
you talk about ways to move forward. what is forward for you? where do you want to go, what do you want to do?
i, for example, am graduated from architectural school, and have done from snowboard pants to java applets. amateur in most of them, i've done a million things, and that is for me moving forward, since i love to be challenged by new environments, and learn.
what is it for you? i mean, what is forward, when you say "studying" or "playing around wit P5". if you know where do you want to go, and know it well, it is difficult for you not to get there.
i am also new to P5, and started cause it was requisite for a collaboration i'm doing right now. resulted on me being the main programmer, and i'm really having fun with it. also, i'm applying to ivrea, on a scholarship bases. so i'm doing both. so maybe you can do both too.
timewise, for the two choices you have given here, i'll start with #1. after all, for applying to a MA, you have to wait a year, make it a P5, JAVA, flash, whatever-you-fancy year.
i don't know much about the technologies to follow (besides new-comer java) but i got a shitload of inspiration from REAS (http://www.groupc.net) and fry (http://acg.media.mit.edu/people/fry) websites. (at a moment i thought that i wasted all the time in the world with off-the-shelf programs, just to discover programming and the ability of doing my own apps, but what the heck, we're never too old to code, are we?)
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| « Last Edit: Apr 2nd, 2003, 7:28pm by pollux » |
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pollux | www.frwrd.net
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Glen Murphy
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Re: need career guidance: designer/programmer
« Reply #3 on: Apr 3rd, 2003, 2:48am » |
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I'm in a slightly similar position to you:
Did two years of Mechatronics+Comp Sci at uni, hated the place, had personal problems, dropped out, got a job as a designer at Sausage (anyone remember Hotdog?), that company went down the tubes and I've been working as a Developer at a local company for the past two years.
I'm currently doing preliminary work to improve my academic 'folio' with a view to getting into a Masters by research; not having a degree doesn't help, but I'm assured by the right people that there are ways. Since I live at home, most of my money from work goes towards buying equipment and tools to facilitate this.
This 'preliminary work' is taking the form of writing stuff up in academic-paper style, then writing the first chunk of a thesis. Even if I don't get accepted anywhere, I'll still have had a great experience.
(This is why I haven't had much time to spend on processing recently).
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forkinsocket
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Re: need career guidance: designer/programmer
« Reply #4 on: Apr 17th, 2003, 6:54pm » |
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bernd,
i can understand your point of view. i am self taught in many of the areas in which i now practice. for instance, the computer science program i studied in as an undergraduate focused on teaching theory, not programming; one was forced to learn programming on one's own, in order to complete projects.
regardless of whether or not you decide to pursue graduate level study, it is good that you are able to learn on your own. independent study, combined with genuine critical feedback about one's work, are important in getting to the next level.
if you want to develop your technical skills, i suggest that you try to reimplement some of your processing sketches in a different language or environment. it would be good to this in a couple of different languages; java and c++/opengl are two that you might look at.
this will help you gain confidence about your abilities, and teach you to appreciate the value of processing as a sketching tool. it's also good to have a project in mind when one approaches a new language, as motivation.
you may like to ask people in the processing community if they can recommend a good introductory level computer science text. much of good design is about finding elegant solutions to design problems. a similar philosophy exists within cs.
interaction design courses generally do not emphasise programming. it is important to be able to build things. that is, to make an idea concrete as a functioning screen based or physical (tangible) prototype. however the emphasis is on the quality of a design, how well it's been thought through, etc.
remember that programming is only one tool in your bag of tricks. often, the value of a good concept can be proved with a video that demonstrates the quality of an interaction, rather than a functional prototype.
you may find this article helpful in making a decision about attending an MA course in Interaction Design:
http://www.cooper.com/newsletters/2001_06/so_you_want_to_be_an_interacti on_designer.htm
finally, ivrea, the school i am attending, offers 80% to 120% funding to students. i do not know what the funding situation is at other schools.
i hope that helps.
best,
d.
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tomek
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Re: need career guidance: designer/programmer
« Reply #5 on: May 13th, 2003, 9:07pm » |
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Bernd, one of the important questions to ask is if you study well on your own, i.e. if you are comfortable being autodidact. Unquestionably there are benefits to both education at school and on your own. For example I love to learn, read, study, but I always hated school. I also find that nowadays situation for the 'outsiders' has improved significantly because of the Internet. Just that fact that whenever I want to learn about a new to me topic I can immediately do excellent research on what are the most important books I should cover is a major change. Internet has empowered everybody who is self educating and made it very efficient, potentially more efficient than going to school. If you translate the tuition fees into your custom made home library and time to create your own projects and you have enough discipline to do systematic work you can potentially create your own school.
Then again, there are drawbacks. One of the things I find valuable about going to school is meeting and being inspired by people with similar interests. You can meet people online, but it's not the same and daily interactions and collaborative projects in the domain of your interest.
Also, school might be good to explore various avenues if you want to wonder around a bit. It will most likely push you in various directions some of which you might find boring and waste of time and some might become your future specialization.
Good schools won't focus on giving you specialized tool training - they will provide discipline principles. Most of the computer science graduates can barely program and find it very difficult to enter the industry simply because of lack of practical software development skills. So, if you want to gain very practical, down to earth skills related to some technologies that is not the most efficient route. Which is not to say that it is not worth studying computer science...
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