What Will I Learn?

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.

Part of our vision for the Creative Technologies curriculum is tied to our aims not only in individual courses, but accumulating over the whole of the degree. The following six forms of knowledge, skill, and experience — we call them “learning outcomes” —  are forms of knowledge that you can expect to build in not one course, but three or more courses, across the whole of your experience in the Creative Technologies major. Each of them is introduced at some point in the first year of the program, and each of them is a developing practice in at least one later course. Finally, for each of these areas, you will find at least one upper-division course (100 or above) where — after having encountered and practiced it in those prior courses — you can expect to demonstrate your competency and fluency in that area, showing a high level of expertise. 

Each Creative Technologies contributes to one of more of these outcomes, in one of the three ways described above: introducing, practicing, and demonstrating. As you begin work in each course, navigate the syllabus to the “Learning Outcomes” section to learn more about both the detailed learning you can expect in that course, and the broader outcomes of the CT program that you can expect the course to support.

Goals of the Creative Technologies curriculum

1 – Digital literacy

Gain literacy in creative tools for digital expression, and in the effective use of technology in arts and design: including digital platforms and algorithms, AI- and algorithmic arts and design tools, and emerging technology in a variety of media.

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2 – Media studies

Critically comprehend media and media culture, potentially I ncluding institutions, creative labor and labor practices; the ethics of data, information, and digital platforms; with a focus on digital media’s diverse impacts on dialogues surrounding tradition, culture, and racial, social, and environmental justice.

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3 – Contextualizing creative practice

Understand contemporary creative practices in their contexts: relating them to the impactful practices of our contemporaries and predecessors; contextualized by theory, history, and ethics in the arts, design, and media.

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4 – Strategies for creative practice

Learn strategies for bringing complex work to completion, individually and collaboratively, across a variety of media, including written, image- and sound-based, performance-based, and socially engaged media.

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5 – Cultivation of collaborative growth

Cultivate a mindset of curiosity, dialogue, and growth, with respect to one’s work and process, and its social and ethical impact. We learn from mistakes as well as triumphs—ours and others’—as we work toward meaningful creative work and social change.

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6 – Social practice and engagement

Learn to engage in informed social practices, shaped by reflection on individual and collective identity, and informed by the pursuit of sustainability, equity, justice, a world that works for all of us and our communities.