"I think my collection of works for postgraduate entrance examination is very good. I have received the admission notice of xxx at home, so how can I apply to foreign art colleges and universities?" "My previous collection of works clearly got offers from three companies, but now I can't even apply to the schools ranking 70 or above abroad?" Such doubts, I have been consulted by students more than once Personal art works collection, postgraduate entrance examination works collection, candidate works collection and graduation design works collection all have the "works collection" as the Titel, but can the art study abroad works collection used to apply for colleges and universities use the postgraduate entrance examination, graduation design, candidate works collection and personal art works collection? Today, I asked former admissions officers of overseas art schools, tutors of six major departments, tutors of Natural Light Teaching and Research Center, and admissions consultants from RISD to talk about their understanding of these "collections of works".

Differences between several "collections":

What is the difference between the collection of overseas art works used to apply for colleges and universities and the collection of postgraduate entrance exams, graduation projects, job applications, personal art works, etc? Former admissions officers of overseas art schools, tutors of six major departments, tutors of Natural Light Teaching and Research Center, and admissions consultants from RISD will introduce to you.

　　 Kara Rooney/former SVA admissions officer; Current professor of RISD:

The collection of artists' works is more self and free; However, you need to seize the limited opportunities to show your abilities and ideas.

I don't know much about the postgraduate entrance examination system in China, so I would like to talk about it from the perspective of the collection of works used by colleges and universities and the collection of works of artists.

From my experience, there is some overlap between the school's works collection and the artist's works collection, but they are not equal to each other.

First of all, of course, they are all collections of works, but artists' collections are more self oriented and free. For an artist, he can update his collection of works at any time. His collection can be a PDF saved in a computer folder or uploaded to the network. For example, a friend of mine, his ins and Facebook are collections of works. ins are updated every day. Facebook is updated once a week, and unsatisfied works will be deleted.

Screenshot from artist francesca.rosafio ins

For an artist, his collection can only contain works he is satisfied with, can also include graffiti, and can also include some recent projects he has participated in.

But the collection of works applied for is very purposeful. It tells the school, "I want to study here, and I have the ability to study here." Once the collection of works adds such a purpose, it will have less freedom.

To apply for a school, you must show your ability level through one piece of work. For example, in American schools, the collection of works needs to be uploaded to the slideroom. Many students ask me what to do if the number of pages in the collection does not follow the school's requirements and exceeds the required number of pages. I really don't know which page to delete. I often joke "It doesn't matter, slideroom It will force you to make a decision ". Because once the number of pages exceeds, the slideroom cannot be uploaded.

Therefore, you need to seize the limited opportunities to show your ability and ideas in the collection of works for application. The content of each page of the collection should be balanced. They may be several pages to form a project. However, even if one page is taken out separately, the admissions officer should know how excellent you are.

　　 Jennifer Chung, former admissions consultant of RISD:

Former admission consultant of RISD, graduated from the Rhode Island School of Design of RISD, and has cooperated with brands such as SKII, Dior, Van Cleef, Versace, YSL, Cartier, La Prairie, Jurlique, La Perla, etc.

What the company needs is people with enough ability, and you need a mature solution problem; What the school needs is students who show "I have the potential to continue learning" with their works.

When I reviewed the collection of works, I was impressed with a set of works that were very similar to the collection of works for recruitment. During the interview, I told the applicant that your collection of works was too similar to the collection of works for recruitment, and I might not want to see such works. Later, I explained to him why his collection of works was not suitable for school application, and he cried on the spot when he heard that.

Applying for a school and applying for a job do look similar, but they need to show different things. Because the students needed by the school are different from the staff needed by the company.

What the company needs is someone who has enough ability to complete a project alone, or become a member of the team to work with everyone on a mature big project. Therefore, you should hire a portfolio, and emphasize that you already have mature ability to solve problems.

For example, when we look at the recruitment website, we will find that the recruitment requirements often show that we want employees who are particularly strong in xxx. The professional field facing job hunting may be a small direction in a specific major.

The picture comes from the network, creative recruitment works collection

But the school is looking for people who have a foundation and have the ability to continue learning. In the collection of works you showed me, first of all, technical skills/basic abilities should be displayed; Secondly, concept creativity/personal interest and concept creativity; Then comes personality/personal inner; And your interest of major/.

Compared with the two collections, the one for recruitment will be more "dedicated" to a specific professional direction, while the one for application needs you to show your possibilities, such as the ability to continue in-depth learning, curiosity about new things, strong willingness to express personal ideas, etc.

As an enrollment consultant of RISD, I generally don't want this student when I encounter recruitment type works. Of course, it doesn't mean that this student does poorly, but that most of these works only show a single professional ability, which is limited to a fixed professional direction, without letting me see what divergent ideas he has, And in other fields.

　　 Teacher Wu of Natural Light Teaching and Research Center:

Mr. Wu is responsible for the research and development of natural light teaching products and courses, and is good at landscape design, architectural design and urban planning.

The collection of postgraduate entrance examination works tends to examine students' professional hard power; The collection of overseas art works emphasizes the expression of students' self-consciousness and the coherence of their works.

I will mainly talk about the difference between art study abroad collection and postgraduate entrance examination collection.

As for a student I met before, he was going to apply for a domestic graduate student at that time, but as we all know, he also had to take the postgraduate entrance exam. He was not very outstanding in the culture class, but his English was good, so he hesitated again and again at that time and finally decided to study abroad.

At the beginning, he applied for the postgraduate entrance examination work collection, directly translated the text into English, and submitted it. He applied to 6 or 7 schools, all of which were rejected consecutively, so he decided to seek help from the organization.

The picture comes from the network, and is an example of the collection of works for postgraduate entrance examination in China

I found that the collection of works he gave me (that is, his collection of works for postgraduate entrance examination) lacked coherence and foreshadowing. In fact, the content and ideas in it are great. Although the renderings are a bit popular, I can see that he should be one of the best in college, with a solid foundation. He is even better than most of our students. If he applies for domestic graduate students, at least his portfolio should be OK.

But if his collection of works is applied to foreign universities, it will be very difficult. Foreign colleges and universities pay special attention to students' ideas and their display of self-consciousness. Even if your portfolio discusses a very impractical topic, if you add a lot of your own ideas and show your subjective consciousness on this topic, the admissions officer will also feel "Interesting!"

For example, the following comparison chart comes from my colleague's students who have taken the postgraduate entrance examination in China before and are going abroad before they come to the natural light:

Natural Light You Student's Postgraduate Entrance Examination Works and Art Study Abroad Works Collection

Another point is that the collection of overseas art works needs to show your creation process, because in the view of the school and the admissions officer, a complete work for application includes the creation process and preliminary preparation of your collection. Therefore, your collection of works needs to show the continuity of creation, especially the foreshadowing of the early stage, that is, research.

I found that in fact, the collection of works for postgraduate entrance examination in China now also emphasizes the presentation of these processes, but it only means "to have". The focus of the investigation is still on the final results and students' basic abilities.

　　 Teacher Zhang, tutor of the collection of works of the "six major departments" design innovation department:

Mr. Zhang is good at graphic design, interactive design and installation art.

The graduation work is a work of "infinite amplification and refinement"; The collection of overseas art works is a comprehensive demonstration of students' ability in multiple projects.

Let me talk about the collection of graduation works. Every year, I will meet the collection of students' works to be used as graduation works. In terms of content, many adjustments have been made. Two students have American background and have not made much changes. Later, they prepared a presentation; However, several other domestic undergraduate students have changed quite a lot. One of the most changed children is because the school's graduation project requires that "25 pages or more of the design process map must be submitted".

For most domestic students, this requirement may be a bit overwhelming. On the one hand, their graduation works only have one project; On the other hand, the domestic teaching model of redirecting the output of results does not tell students how to allocate energy and time in the process.

For example, this student showed me his graduation work for the first time, 25 process maps, many of which were hard put together, all of which were sketches, and there was nothing particularly valuable to show. This is actually the "common problem" of some domestic students. They make things first and then make up the process.

However, you should be clear that process is a necessary way to derive results. Foreign colleges and universities want to see that every page of students' work has "content", and no page is hard put up.

The picture is from the network, and the collection of graduation design works

Like the works made by students from domestic colleges and universities after graduation, the final pamphlet usually does not have many words. In fact, in the collection of overseas art works, I do not want students to stack design instructions to complete the later typesetting, but it does not mean that words can be omitted as much as possible and only drawings can be displayed.

Text description is a tool to help others understand works. You should explain to others, but words cannot occupy a large space in the works collection. Otherwise, why do you want to make a work collection and write a creative paper? If your images can accurately describe your creation process, then you can appropriately reduce the text description.

　　 Anna, 2019:

Anna graduated from the Central American High School Affiliated to the United States and applied for Painting. Now she has received RISD Preet College of Art Pratt, Maryland Academy of Arts MICA, Chicago Academy of Arts SAIC offer.

Personal works rely on "self release", and the collection of art works for studying abroad emphasizes subjective ideas.

To be honest, I was rejected by several schools for my first application because I confused the definition of these collections. Because I am from the Affiliated High School of the Academy of Fine Arts, and my goal is RISD Painting, I prefer to prepare to show my ability in painting skills, just to tell the school that I can paint very well.

When I applied for the first time, I was actually quite confident. The work was complete, and I also showed it to several teachers around me. Everyone helped me. But I didn't expect to be rejected, and there were several schools all at once, so I lost confidence all at once.

Later, when I came to the natural light, I was led by teacher Wang. In the first class, I was really confused because the teacher just talked with me. It didn't feel like a class or a teacher or a student. It was more like I discussed a topic with my friends to exchange our views on this issue. Later, I found that my previous collection of works was more biased towards the individual type of artists than the collection for studying abroad.

The work collection of art study abroad may emphasize my own subjective ideas and the methods used to express a specific object/topic. For example, when I apply for painting, I can also submit sculpture works and installation works, because they are a way for me to express my understanding of painting. It will not be restricted by many basic techniques, nor by the inherent definition of the profession. Like my collection of works prepared this time, one of the projects is a combination of photography and interactive programming.

Can I use other collections of works instead of overseas art works?

Can I use the collection of art works for studying abroad to apply for colleges and universities? Above, I invited five admissions officers, tutors, students, or individuals, or cases around me, to say their understanding of different types of collections. Finally, I would like to share my thoughts with you.

　　 Personal works of artists

It emphasizes the artist's personal characteristics. As the artist's understanding of the world changes, his works may also change. In terms of form, an artist's personal collection of works often does not have too many words to describe, nor too much to show his own creation process in the collection of works, or use the words of very concrete theory to express his works.

For example, the personal works of artists we have seen in the past may be as follows:

The picture is from the network, and the collection of works "CORBEAU" by photographer Anne Golaz

It can be seen that, except for the page number and the table of contents, there is basically no text description or description, explaining how the photographer shoots, how to set the light, how to consider the selection of scenery, and similar creative process display.

　　 Collection of works for postgraduate entrance examination

Most of them are composed of hand-painted and professional works, and the professional orientation will be more obvious. For example, when applying for industrial design, the content of the works collection is basically composed of industrial design works and hand-painted. On the whole, it is necessary to fully reflect the students' individual ability in the professional dimension and basic ability.

　　 Collection of works for application

I want to use Jennifer, a RISD admissions consultant, to sum up, because I think she has made it clear that the company needs people with enough ability. The work collection applied for should be a very mature designer or artist, with a very purposeful work collection, which needs to show high professionalism and mature design ability.

　　 Graduation Design Collection

In fact, it is a detailed amplification of a specific project. Because there is only one project in the whole collection, and most of them do not have specific page control, students can more freely put the project design process in the collection. In fact, this collection of works is also a relatively mature and complete project, because it needs to show students' comprehensive ability through undergraduate or master's study.

　　 Collection of Art Studied Abroad

It is a collection of works used to apply for overseas art schools. It is very purposeful and is prepared for the purpose of applying to colleges and universities. You need to show your comprehensive ability in multiple dimensions through multiple projects within a limited number of pages.

Many students often confuse the use of different collections of works because they have not added the most critical restriction of "applying for colleges" to their collections of works. The collection of overseas works of art is used to apply for art colleges, that is, it is highly functional and directional. Compared with the collection of works for postgraduate entrance examination, it emphasizes students' ideas and personal awareness; Compared with the work collection that should be employed, it also needs to show students' learning potential; Then compare the individual works of artists, and the demonstration of project process is part of the demonstration of students' ability.

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