【讲座嘉宾】Zimmy , Elysha , Teresa & Maggie
【文字整理】麦妈
【语音整理】嘟嘟妈
【文字校对】清风霁月
【公众号编辑】风继续吹
本次讲座为全英文讲座。
【讲座嘉宾介绍】
Zimmy - My name is Zimmy and I’m from Sharon, Massachusetts. I went to Sharon High School, and I am interested in pursuing product design or communication design based in social media. In my free time I enjoy painting and customizing clothing.
Elysha - My name is Elysha and I’m from the Bay Area, California. I have a fine arts and illustration background. My favorite art mediums are acrylic paint, ink, charcoal, and digital. I am interested in pursuing communications design, illustration, branding, and user experience design.
Teresa - My name is Teresa and I'm from Boston, Massachusetts. I went to a project-based design program in high school and focused on client-specific product design. In my free time I work on fine arts such as illustration and clothing design.
Maggie - My name is Maggie and I’m from Millburn, New Jersey. My favorite fine art mediums include graphite, colored pencil, pastel and acrylic paint. I am interested in communications design, specifically merchandise, branding, art direction, and user experience design.
They will talk about how to begin the process, some advice for what schools to apply to, and some tips about creating a portfolio.
【讲座内容】
Zimmy –
Hi everyone! 
My name is Zimmy and I am presenting today with my friends/peers

Elysha, Maggie, and Teresa. 
We wanted to start by saying thank you to Pan Li and the other group administrators for giving us this opportunity and platform to speak, as well as everyone listening right now.
We appreciate your time and attention and we hope this will be helpful! We would love to answer your questions at the end to give additional information.


We wanted to host this presentation because we know that the application process can be super tricky sometimes, especially in the case of applying art/design schools. 
There are extra steps that need to be taken such as curating a portfolio and having gone through the application process we understand how these extra steps can be very confusing for those who are just starting the process and don’t know that much. 
This is why we wanted to take the time to share our experiences and really help navigate the process of applying to Art and Design schools for those who are going to start the process and want to learn more about it. 
We will be talking about searching for colleges and how to narrow down that list of colleges to apply to, as well as this big step of curating a portfolio which is arguably the most important part of applying to Art and Design schools. 
Finally, we would also like to mention how we might be able to help in this process of curating a portfolio for those who are beginning to look at the steps. 
We would like to start off by introducing ourselves and giving some examples of our work so that everyone can get a better sense of who we are and what our experiences have been like to shape our art portfolios.
Like I said, my name is Zimmy Kang, and I grew up in Sharon Massachusetts. Growing up I was really into fine arts, especially drawing and painting. But I was also really interested in some STEM subjects like physics and math. 
So I got into design because I felt that this would be a good career path to kind of put my love for a visual art to a specific function and purpose. 
Now ’m going to send in a few examples of my works.
Maggie –
Hi everybody my name is Maggie Ma. I’m from Melbourne New Jersey. 
My favorite fine art medium includes graphite, colored pencil, pastel, and colored paint. And I’m interested in communications design specifically merchandise branding, art direction and user experience design. Below I’ll include a picture of some of my work.
Teresa –
My name is Teresa and I’m from Boston Massachusetts. 
I went to a project-based design program in high school and focused on client specific product design. In my free time I worked on fine art such as illustration including design. 
In the future I would like to work on designing for public service and I will also include some of my work below.
Elysha –
Hi everyone my name is Elysha Tsai and I’m from the bay area California. My background is in the fine arts and illustration. I also enjoy using charcoal, gouache and acrylic paint. 
I love design because I get to apply my visual art skills to solve problems creatively. I look forward to pursuing communication design in the future. I included some of my works in the picture below.
Zimmy –
So we are all rising sophomores at Carnegie Mellon University pursuing majors in design. We just finished our freshman year in the design program. We have gained a lot of new skills and ways of thinking that we wanted to apply this summer by helping others through the application process. 
This presentation will be for students who are interested in applying to Art and Design schools, and to anyone who might know someone who would be interested. 
We would like to provide a disclaimer, however, that although we all attend Carnegie Mellon University, we’re not sponsored by Carnegie Mellon to give this presentation. 
We also can’t guarantee admission to CMU or any other school. 
We would like to help as much as possible, but this advice is based on personal experience and the process is different for everyone.
Now Elysha is going to talk a little bit more about why we’re qualified to give this information.
Elysha –
To start, we think it's important to talk about other places you can get this kind of information. 
Art teachers and professional artists have extensive knowledge about specific art forms, and perhaps the art and design industry as a whole. However, what we offer as current design students is the experience of applying to the art and design specific programs and schools really fresh in our minds, our takeaways from our own art teachers and art education, as well as design fundamentals we have picked up from our first year at Carnegie Mellon. 
Our Experiences are reinforced with successful results. We got into schools such as RISD, MICA, SAIC, Parsons School of Design, Massachusetts College of Art + Des, CalArts, Art Center, School of Visual Arts, University of Cincinnati, Syracuse, UMich, and more. 
Not only are these the best art programs in the nation, we have conducted our own research about these schools, talked to admission officers, applied to them, got accepted, and also considered attending them. We also received extensive scholarships from these schools. 
Furthermore we all have our unique art journey and experiences in high schools. we know that different methods and techniques in application process can be successful and get the same results. 
We wanted to provide more resources and assistance to the students who are going through the same process during this pandemic.
In the end, we all got accepted and matriculated at Carnegie Mellon with a Major in Design -- our current graduating class has 38 students. 800 students applied to our program and the program has an average acceptance rate of 7%. 
Although we come from a general background of fine arts, we’re taking advantage of our education to explore different facets of design such as communication, product and ui/ux design, and design for public policy. 
Maggie –
Now I’ll be talking a little bit more about the process of applying to Art and design schools and programs.  
One of the questions that we got was where do you find a list of majors related to art and which universities offer the majors? 
For information like this, obviously google would be your best resource. You can Google of any institution, and then there’ll be a list with something majors and minors. They offer as well as explanations about some of the courses on their website. 
I would also suggest making lists and spreadsheets on each institution's requirements – such as the test score average, GPA average, important application deadlines for early decision /early action /early action II / regular application, cost of attendance,  whether the institution uses the common app or there’s a personal application , website , or as well as they require letters of recommendation.
Another element to think about is location. 
I know right now with coronavirus going on, many parents might not want their student going very far from home. 
So do you wanna go to an institution on the West Coast or the East Coast, as well as think about school size, for example, a big state school with more school spirit, bigger party culture, bigger lectures/class sizes, while small liberal arts school/art school may feel like your high school in which you kind of every student in your grade. 
All these schools are based on personal preference. 
A bigger school might be too overwhelming or intimidating while a smaller school might be too confining. 
So during coronavirus, on tips for applying to college or including colleges are pushing the issue with their current students emails situation Tips for applying to college are included: 
noticing how colleges are approaching the issue with their current students—have they been transparent in emails? 
Do they simply kick students off campus without offering other resources? 
Did they refund tuition? 
Information like this can be found online, social media, even the news, or Youtube videos, or by reaching out to current college students. 
I would also suggest to check out some of the institution’s virtual tours, online chat resources, and attending zoom calls information sessions to kind of replicate an online college visit.
So after you got down your list of institutions, you might be wondering now oh do I go to an art school or do I want to attend an art program in a larger university. 
So some pros being in a larger university might be that a larger university has a wide variety of students from all different majors — engineering, english, math, drama, etc.
So you have the opportunity to talk and be friends with people of all different backgrounds and of different passion. 
But some of the cons might be that large university programs usually don’t offer very specific artistic majors, such as illustration, printmaking, ceramics, etc. It usually just fall under a large major of a fine arts. 
Some of the pros of attending Art school such as they may have better art-related facilities, resources because all funding goes towards that. And also you can be in a very supportive community of artists that are passionate about what they do, relationships and friendships will definitely be connections that will help you into your creative career.
Another question we got is when should kids start to prepare? 
For me personally I started in sophomore year of high school. I also took AP art in high school so I was able to build my portfolio all throughout high school. 
But I also know many other students who started their portfolio summer of junior year, which is probably a lot of students right now trying to build their portfolio. 
But with that deadline it would be definitely more of a cram. 
I would go to the studio at like 12 PM in the afternoon and stay for nine hours until 9 PM at night so definitely starting earlier is the way to go.
Maggie –
Another really great way to prepare your portfolio and get a better sense of what a college would be like is to attend pre-college programs. 
These programs are generally held in the summer and take place over the course of around six weeks where a student will go to the University’s campus and stay there while taking classes like they would in college. 
Unfortunately due to the current situation these pre-college programs have been canceled this summer. 
But for those of you who are earlier on in the process and don’t need to apply this fall, a really great way to get a better sense of what it would be like to attend the national college would be to attend a pre-college program during next summer. 
Personally I attended RISD pre-college for Architecture in 2017 and CMU pre-college for Design in 2018. 
I found both of these programs really insightful and really helpful when I was making my portfolio because I had a better sense of what the college was looking for as well as the types of skills that would be required of me.
Teresa –
Arguably the most important part of any art and design application is the portfolio. 
A portfolio is a curated, well documented collection of your best work. Most design and art schools accept student portfolios through a website called slide room. 
Every school is different but most will ask you to upload 5 to 15 different projects. For each project you will upload one image and then enter details about the project. 
Again, all schools are different but some of the information you may be asked for includes medium, size, date created, and whether it was a project for school or self-driven project. 
When selecting which projects to submit try and build a body of work that shows three things - technical skills, breath of experience, and personal voice.  
Schools wanna see that you have hard skills that have been built to consistent practice. 
My most practice skill is drawing. So I made sure to include illustrations that showcase my ability in that area. 
In addition, if you have proficiency in any specific software or technology you may want to include that as well. 
For example, in the design program I attended throughout high school, the use of laser cutters and 3-D printers was emphasized, so I made sure to include projects in which I utilize these technologies. 3-D modeling, sewing, welding, or electrical engineering are all lesser seen skills that can make a portfolio more interesting.
Schools also want to see that you have created work ranging across multiple disciplines. This shows natural curiosity and creativity. 
If you have many different areas of expertise, try and find a piece of work that represents each area – illustration, sculpture, animation, clothing design, woodworking, glassblowing, website design and more. Or some of the interesting and diverse mediums that could be showcased in your portfolio. 
Not all the projects in your portfolio need to show a mastery level of skill. Some can be there to express the breath of your exploration. 
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