SJCC provides specialized art degrees and certificates

For students interested in the growing field of new media technology, San Jose City College offers an associate degree in media arts.

The media arts program is a distinct, multifaceted approach to the converging fields of journalism, communication and new media technology, according to the 2013-2014 SJCC course catalog. It responds to the need for people skilled in effective communications in all areas of society.

“It’s really about the technical side of art,” said Judith Bell, lead faculty of media arts. “It looks at how technology and art interface so it’s really part of the art program, and we do have requirements for things like drawing, color and design, but it’s about taking those things and applying them on the computer.”

The associate degree in media arts provides a core foundation of media and visual literacy, a foundation of technical skills and principles of design, as well as focused skill development in: information gathering and reporting in journalistic formats, photojournalism concepts and skills, and application of theory and skill to journalistic practice, according to the catalog.

“This program really gives them (students) a chance to try things out,” Bell said. “The thing about media arts is that it’s a place where you really get to use a lot of creativity, and you really get to use different kinds of skills.”

Bell said students need to possess a wide variety of skills in order to succeed in this field.

“We offer the classes, but we’d really like to ramp it up again and bring in more industry professionals,” Bell said. “It’s a moving target; things are changing and growing, but the one thing that doesn’t really change is the need for design skills.”
Students can expect to take classes in web design, computer graphics, Photoshop, news writing and reporting and mass media.

“We’ve been through a couple of different iterations,” Bell said. “We started out being much more closely tied to computer sciences; now we’re more closely tied to journalism, and we plan to make that tie much stronger in the future.”
Bell said the college plans to integrate more classes with the journalism department so students can apply their skills to specific work, such as the newspaper.

“It’s one of the only programs on campus that really gives students hands-on experience in projects, and it provides such an amazing service,” Bell said. “The newspaper is a very important part of this community and I believe strongly that we should have full-time faculty in journalism.”

Traditional classroom education does not focus on group skills or on-the-job skills compared to the career and technical education programs on campus.

“We need to be training people for jobs,” Bell said. “We also need to be training people to have multiple jobs and to be adaptable in how they approach jobs.”

Media arts classes can also be helpful for students who already have jobs and are looking to improve their skills.

“I enrolled in web design, computer graphics and Photoshop to enhance my marketing skills for promotional purposes,” said Jenneke de Vries, 42, owner of Pizza Bocca Lupo in San Pedro Square Market.

Bell said SJCC is a great place to learn the basics about certain programs and what it takes to be a designer.

Kuntal Choudhary, 18, media arts major, said she plans on being a graphic designer after she finishes her degree at San Jose State University.

“I was already an artist and interested in art so I wanted to take that knowledge and learn how to use it on the computer,” Choudhary said.

Students with a flair for creativity can be successful in media arts regardless of artistic experience. Because the field is still growing, new jobs are constantly being created and people often end up creating their own jobs.

Bell said creative companies are not worried about failure because failure is part of the creative process, and students should feel encouraged to pursue careers in this industry.

“I’m excited about the future, and because I’ve been interested in creativity studies and bringing that to the campus, I feel ready to start looking at what we can put in place to move this program forward,” Bell said.