Digital Culture and Design, B.A.

Mission Statement

The B.A. in Digital Culture and Design is designed to provide students with the opportunity to pursue interdisciplinary study in the humanities, arts, and social sciences, with a focus on developing critical perspectives and practical skill sets in creating and utilizing digital media and content.

The mission of the Digital Culture and Design program is to prepare students to conduct advanced research across disciplinary boundaries, to synthesize information, and to present that information in a range of digital formats that suit the needs of a variety of audiences. Students in the B.A. in Digital Culture and Design program investigate the reflexive imbrication of technology and humanities and fine arts. They practice critical thinking skills not only on their assignments within the foundational theory and methods courses, but in the design and completion of digital projects in each of the advanced methods courses and in either an internship or practicum experience. The development of these skills culminates with their individually-designed capstone projects. They become adept at collaboration with colleagues in other fields of study; they investigate and pursue practical applications of disciplinary knowledge through digital technologies and content creation; they become more proficient in writing and in representing humanistic knowledge through other forms of media; they utilize technology for presentations, visual media and print documents; and they learn professional procedures appropriate for a variety of both public sector and private industry settings.

Students majoring in Digital Culture and Design must earn a C or above in each course used to satisfy requirements for the Major.

Student Learning Outcomes

Students who complete the requirements for a degree in Digital Culture and Design will be able to:

1. Read comparatively and critically analog and digital texts, identifying, analyzing, and critiquing relevant cultural, aesthetic, and technical/structural themes.
2. Articulate concisely through written and oral expression the issues (e.g. social, cultural, aesthetic, technical, and economic) common to digital humanities research.
3. Collaborate with peers through not only the use of new technologies but also an agreed upon structure and democratic workflow that employs critical and affective feedback for revision of concepts and project development.
4. Demonstrate applied fluency and facility with the concepts, projects, and applications within the digital humanities.
5. Articulate an understanding of the relevance of the medium of code to humanistic topics.
6. Synthesize text/codes, images, and narratives across a variety of mediated formats (including but not limited to written essays, online forums, human-machine performance platforms, hypertexts, computer models, and web interfaces).
7. Understand, analyze, and use data.
8. Utilize the basic elements of coding to design elementary markup artifacts and real time applications.