In the study abroad of art majors, it is generally believed that the assessment criteria for art students should be design works, and even we ourselves often ignore the importance of papers. In fact, both domestic and foreign art colleges are paying more and more attention to the cultivation of students' theoretical research ability, compared with the surprise when graduating from domestic universities, Foreign colleges and universities have also integrated "thesis writing" into the courses of various art disciplines, and most of these courses are concentrated in the first three semesters, together with the humanities general education courses. Therefore, the first year of the courses of foreign top art colleges and universities, full of paper writing schedules, is designed to cultivate our basic artistic literacy and artistic criticism at the same time, We can treat our design works more objectively and rigorously, and establish a correct outline! Today, let's summarize some "writing courses" from top art colleges abroad, and see how we have been cultivated step by step into "versatile talents"!
First year courses of top foreign art schools, full of thesis writing courses:
PARSONS
Parsons Pure Art
It is said that pure art is the specialty of cultivating real "artists". Artists always go into the studio or studio to create, and picking up paper and pen to write papers should not be their strong point. However, in foreign art colleges, they focus on cultivating students with creative thinking and self style, and the techniques are only used as a way of expression, which requires early and late research and theoretical accumulation.
Taking Parsons Master of Fine Arts as an example, we can see from the curriculum on the official website that in the few courses in the autumn and spring semester of the second year, research and writing courses as a series of courses accounted for two classes.
This series of courses is Parsons School of Design Parsons is specially designed for graduate students majoring in pure arts. In the first year of the course, students have experienced many artist lectures and technical practices, and they have also accumulated some critical opinions. Therefore, the course content at this stage hopes to confirm and expand the research field of students through reading and research.
The research results will also be combined with the students' practice. In the second semester of the thesis class, each student's thesis project needs to include their plans and goals for the final stage of the graduation design, which is more like the nature of the graduation thesis, which is totally different from the habit of many of us students to put the research part into the work after completion.
Students will also expand and deepen their research through discussion groups. In this environment, teachers and students will also constantly put forward their own opinions. Expressing their own ideas and learning writing in different ways of thinking are the focus of this series of courses.
Parsons Fashion Design
As a fashion vane, Parsons clothing design major has a tradition of innovation and commercialization, but its research on theory and history has not been reduced at all.
Since the first semester, there have been a large number of seminar courses. However, in the course introduction, it is also clear that the contents of these seminars are intended to become a way for students to obtain inspiration through reading and writing. At the same time, writing and critical thinking are also considered as important components of the design and thinking process.
In addition, thesis writing is also one of the core tasks of the students in the last year. The first part is conception, and the second part is problem solving. This course enables students to learn to collect materials that can support their creative ideas. These materials are not limited to the fashion industry, but also include visual identification, material innovation, human body and other related knowledge.
Through the absorption, arrangement and combination of these information, students can explore the possibility of fashion creation and learn new clothing technology.
Rhode Island School of Design RISD
RISD Graphic Design
Graphic design as Rhode Island School of Design The school provides students with excellent configuration and rich interdisciplinary courses, aiming to provide students with comprehensive education and promote the boundaries of disciplines. Therefore, in the course arrangement, we also pay attention to cultivating students to exchange ideas and construct ideas in the visual field.
Among the two-year courses in Rhode Island, thesis is a very core course project, which accounts for 6 credits in total and complements the studio courses with the same proportion. From the seminar in the first academic year to the later thesis writing courses on different topics, students will comprehensively and systematically learn the ability to express design thinking.
Moreover, at the end of the semester, all students majoring in graphic design not only need to prepare their works for the design exhibition, but also have the opportunity to participate in a large-scale research paper exhibition held in the Rhode Island Convention Center. It can be seen that the school pays close attention to each student's theoretical contributions to the field of graphic design.
RISD Photography
In fact, the style of photography majors in different colleges and universities is quite different, which is basically due to the different cultural backgrounds. Rhode Island, as a popular school of photography, is popular because Rhode Island will first learn to "read the past" based on the modern cultural and social background. In the first semester, students need to learn the history of film photography, photographic criticism, construction of photographic narrative, etc., and explore the different languages of photography from the perspective of history and culture.
The purpose of this series of courses is also to cultivate the artistic quality they need to be able to express their thoughts and make meaningful work. This is also clearly expressed in the introduction of learning achievements on the official website - students will learn to tell and write their works in a highly clear way.
There are a lot of "critical" in graduate courses, which is more neutral than the literal meaning of "criticism" in photography, representing comments and discussions. Students should understand the background and motivation of photographers behind images and the connotation of their hopes to discuss with us through case studies.
For example, in natural light, our curriculum is also highly integrated with critical, and students will inevitably have bottlenecks or thinking constraints in the creation process. For critical at different stages, students can not only hear ideas or suggestions for improvement from teachers or professional students, but also think again to stimulate more inspiration in observing students' works.
This course itself is also a research writing project. We develop and hone our research methods through experiments and writing in the process, so as to help us develop awareness, expand subject knowledge, and provide a background for creating new works of art.
SVA New York School of Visual Arts
SVA Art Writing MFA
SVA New York Institute of Visual Arts There is a special discipline Art Writing MFA, which is also the only university in the United States that offers a master's degree in art writing. It can be seen that SVA attaches great importance to writing. In the introduction to the official website of this major, it is mentioned that "art needs to master art history and aesthetics, and art writing/criticism is the foundation of all art disciplines, which can help us maintain great curiosity and knowledge of contemporary culture."
The composition of courses in this major is very simple. In the two academic years, there are basically Writing, Thesis and Criticism courses. In addition, there are a large number of interdisciplinary elective courses. The school will invite many well-known artists, writers, critics, editors, art historians and philosophers to give lectures, and even one-on-one interaction.
SVA believes that such a professional setting is very necessary. New York, as the center of world culture and art, students will also receive a lot of resources to learn how to record these experiences in their own way.
OTHER SUBJECTS
Most of SVA's art disciplines have a general class of courses in the first year's courses, that is, Writing and Literature, which is the same as Ma Zhe in domestic universities. It can be seen that SVA has raised thesis writing to the category of thinking foundation.
Taking the popular illustration major as an example, in the first academic year, the writing course, as a series of courses, was divided into two sections. Thomas Woodruff, a professor of illustration, explained that we should not only stimulate and encourage students' imagination, but also teach them their ability to understand art, and it is most effective to read and quote literature carefully. Through our thesis courses and studio courses, our students can create complex and complete works, which is different from the single course combination of many other art schools. We hope that students can also inspire their unique personality through writing.
The course content of interior design is more critical. Students discuss designers and their works under the current social conditions through a series of lectures and case studies, and use critical thinking skills to analyze the habits and cultural trends of current users.
Through the analysis of these majors, it can be seen that SVA attaches great importance to paper writing, and they prefer to see students' expression ability than professional skills. While our students applying for SVA can fully present our thinking process and try to put our creativity into every step when doing their works.
Several popular majors in the colleges and universities we selected today are not just examples. Most of the majors in the "six major departments" will have thesis writing courses. The natural light also takes the series of courses in the basic humanities direction as the compulsory courses of the six major departments' portfolios. And fashion management, fashion research, art history, art theory, architecture and other majors put the paper writing into the enrollment requirements. Among them, there are many differences between domestic and foreign universities in terms of the requirements for papers. Many students write papers when they graduate from domestic universities. Most of them just refer to the same type of papers on HowNet or search for information directly on the web. Their awareness of literature collection is relatively weak.
Reference of foreign colleges and universities is a very important part, and data sources, number of references, etc. are the key points of the investigation of colleges and universities. Take web resources as an example. Although most of the data on Wikipedia or Google have been adjusted and modified by many professionals, they cannot be part of the reference when we write papers. The reference sources recognized by foreign colleges and universities can only be books, periodicals, academic works, etc. that can be inquired after being published, which requires us to read and accumulate in ordinary times. Just like we wrote compositions when we were young, the lack of opinions just means that the accumulation is not enough.
Today, we introduced the first year courses of foreign top art schools, such as Rhode Island School of Design, Parsons School of Design, New York Institute of Visual Arts, and so on. The full schedule of paper writing made us realize that foreign art schools are paying more and more attention to students' theoretical research ability; Design disciplines update new technologies and information very quickly, and we have many ways to obtain resources. I hope that students can master the good method of recording in their daily life, improve their aesthetic ability and cultural heritage, and also capture inspiration at any time!
Natural light shares more topics for you:
University courses for studying abroad _ teaching models _ differences between domestic education and studying abroad
Precautions for the works collection of Parsons School of Design
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