The Topic: Preparing Students for Industry Success
Moderator: Chuck Carey, President and Co-Founder, Troika Design Group
Panelists: Michael Benson, EVP, Marketing, ABC Entertainment Group
and PromaxBDA Chairman
Bear Fisher, SVP, Creative Director, Comcast Entertainment Group
Steph Sebbag, President and Creative Director, bpg
Niels Schuurmans, EVP Brand Marketing & Creative, Spike

So here is the “take away”–

For students preparing for an interview and planning a career in media, six things to know. (These really are universal as far as preparing for any interview.)

1. Where do you fit in? You must know this before going to any interview. Know what your skills and strengths are, and basically what you want to do.
2. Be prepared to show examples of the type of work you want to do.
3. You must do your homework before going to an interview. The panelist said 90% of the applicants they interview have not looked at their web site (!!!)
4. Understand all aspects of the field. Understand how the business works.
5. All the panelists said that they put personality and passion above education. The panelists talked about passion a lot…
6. But work experience is important too, so internships are critical.

Working in the interactive field generally requires an understanding of design process, visual and interaction design, technical production, and business skills.

In order to obtain experience in both design and technical production, I recommend students take courses that cover the subjects I’ve outlined below.  A student needs to spend time exploring different classes to find out what they are good at and what they enjoy doing. When working in interactive design, you may or may not be responsible for technical production. On many projects a separate technical team will be involved. But it’s good to understand the technical side of the interactive field. Even if you don’t become an expert in technical production, if you understand what’s involved, it will make you more employable— and a better team member on any project.

Visual and Interaction Design: Everything and anything about visual and interaction communication design is useful.

A student will need an understanding of the following mediums:
Web, Mobile, Exhibition (kiosks, touch screens etc.), Product, and Print

Although understanding Interactive Design is more than learning an assortment of applications,  a student should have a basic understanding of the following applications:

Photoshop, Illustrator, Acrobat, Fireworks, Dreamweaver, Flash, WordPress (or some other type of Content Management System), for motion: AfterEffects, 3D Studio Max, Cinema 4D, and for video: Final Cut Pro.

A student should find classes that focus on technical production and design, rather than classes which only cover a specific application such as Dreamweaver. I also believe a student’s learning needs to be self-directed. As a student, and also as a working professional, you will need to keep up with new information that develops within the Interactive field—a field which tends to experience more rapid changes than others (such as print, for example).

I’m not aware of an educational track covering all of these skills outside of applying to a BFA or MFA program. Even with an advanced degree, your studies will be deficient in the area of business and industry experience. (*See the link below for more information about what a curriculum should include).

*For more ideas on what you need to know for Interactive Design, see Leslie Jensen-Inman’s website Teach the Web. She has conducted interviews with over 30 web and interactive professionals and asked the following question:

If you could create your dream curriculum for web design and development, what courses and information would you include? Why? What courses and information now in such programs would you eliminate? Why?

Here are the answers.