FAQs
Questions about Creative Technologies?
We have aimed to answer commonly asked questions below; for additional clarification, please feel free to reach us via email at creative@ucsc.edu.
About the major
What is Creative Technologies?
Creative Technologies is a justice-focused online- and hybrid-modality major in arts, media, and design, emphasizing the study of creativity in digital environments.
Digital arts/design environments are powerful and exciting spaces for the pursuit of justice, freedom of inquiry and imagination, and for the cultivation of knowledge, democracy, and stronger communities.
CT courses cover many arts genres and media, allowing you to pursue arts and design training without being stuck “in the box” of traditional disciplines. Moving freely between diverse practices allows CT students to gain more contemporary, collaborative, and multimedia arts experience.
Artists and designers are primary curators of knowledge, dialogue, and cultural representation in our contemporary world, and with that role comes a responsibility to cultivate community agency, democracy, and justice: including environmental justice, climate action, and broad access to knowledge and social dialogue.
How did this program come about?
Creative Technologies arose from a community need here at UCSC to comprehend how new media and new technology can be sites where we bring society’s best futures into reality: futures in which justice, democracy, and sustainability arise from truly participatory works of art and design. The Arts Division also strives to envisage UC Santa Cruz as a truly accessible public university, and we believe that online education is one of the most promising paths toward that aim.
What are the curricular goals of CT?
Creative Technologies aims to build literacy in tools for creative expression, cultivate justice-focused and critical perspectives on histories and cultures of media technology, and help students establish innovative practices for arts and design collaboration and production. Please see our What Will I Learn? page for more information.
What type of student will succeed in the Creative Technologies program? Who is this for?
The Creative Technologies degree is for students who won’t be satisfied with traditionally categorized arts courses, and who want to take risks in porous, lively work that crosses the boundaries of traditional arts skills and practices. This program is for students who want to work with the best of contemporary media, and our best imaginations, to upend social hierarchies and norms to invite the most vulnerable among us into our best and most fulfilled futures.
Creative Technologies students will create work that — beyond mere experiences and information — turns audiences’ attention toward their own creativity, and toward the stories, questions, assumptions, and experiences that they bring to the work. In the best new technologies of arts and design, a listener, a viewer, a reader, a player becomes a new kind of creative worker. Our faculty — environmental artists, game designers, filmmakers, and musicians — specialize in participatory and collaborative creativity, and we emphasize critical resistance against a status quo that so often robs communities of the agency and voice that can be an artist’s best material.
What makes this program unique/special?
At UCSC, we know that the creative work we do as designers and artists is inseparable from the world in which that work occurs: in our case, a world that faces perilous crises in democracy and social and environmental justice. That same world also promises horizons of technological possibility that are almost beyond imagination. Creative Technologies is a program that meets both the perils and promises of our future with equal courage.
Successful Creative Technologies students will not just be effective users of arts technology; they will be gifted in the art of working and expressing between disciplines and skills. We want you to be able to help people from varied backgrounds and experiences to be in genuine dialogue with one another. We expect our students to “show up” in the best senses of the word — bringing their full lives and worlds to a table where difference in background and perspective is not a problem, but a profound asset.
About residency
What is the in-person residency requirement?
Creative Technologies has an in-person residency requirement. This means that undergraduate students need to take at least six credits of in-person classes for three quarters. All other classes may be taken online.
The expectation for students starting as frosh is that they will take in-person courses in their first year, including the College core course; after the first year, they can take all of their classes online and do not need to be physically in Santa Cruz.
The expectation for transfer students is that they will take a Breadth of Arts elective class and the colloquium class in person each quarter of the first year, and the second year can be entirely online.
In all cases, students have the option of remaining in the Santa Cruz area and taking some classes in person, or they can be fully remote after they have completed their in-person requirements. The CT major advisor can assist students looking to explore their modality options.
Which Creative Technologies classes are offered online?
All CT classes are available in an online modality. Only CT 1A, the colloquium, has an in-person option. (There is also an online option, coded CT 1B.)
Does the in-person residency have to be completed at UC Santa Cruz?
The in-person residency can be completed at any UC campus. If you are transferring from another UC, for example, it is very possible you already completed the in-person residency requirement.
For prospective students
How do I apply to UCSC as a Creative Technologies major?
All applicants should apply via the UC application and, when choosing the UCSC campus, choose “Creative Technologies” as their primary major choice. You can learn all about the application process and important deadlines via the UCSC Admissions site.
I am a prospective transfer student. What do I need to prepare in order to become a Creative Technologies major student at UCSC?
Creative technologies is a non-screening major. Transfer students are not required to complete specific major preparation courses for consideration of admission. You can visit the UCSC Admissions site for Creative Technologies for more information on how to apply.
To establish foundational knowledge and practices in arts and/or design prior to the major, the following courses are recommended prior to transfer:
- Coursework in programming, 2D drawing, 3D modeling, or sound design.
- At least one course in a justice-related topic, including but not limited to: courses in critical race and ethnic studies (or similar), indigenous studies, labor studies, disability and accessibility, feminist studies, gender studies, and/or courses on postcolonial or decolonizing practices.
- At least one course in critical art and media studies, including but not limited to: courses in the dissemination and interpretation of contemporary media; visual and aural culture studies; film studies; documentary or archive studies; media history; relationships between media, power, and representation; and critical studies of journalism, social media, or popular culture.
We also recommend fulfilling UCSC general education requirements prior to transfer.
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