Humanities, Computing, and Design Bachelor of Science Degree
Humanities, Computing, and Design
Bachelor of Science Degree
RIT’s humanities, computing, and design major pairs the liberal arts with tech to prepare you for a dynamic career that requires advanced computing and digital skills.
Overview for Humanities, Computing, and Design BS
Why Study Humanities, Computing and Design at RIT?
Multidisciplinary Approach: Humanities, computing, and design is an RIT New Economy Major. This collection of degree programs is forward-thinking and future-forming, and helps prepare you to excel in the multidisciplinary nature of our modern, dynamic economy.
Hands-On Experience: Develop a professional portfolio showcasing your work on dynamic, hands-on projects to employers.
Flexible Skill Set: Learn to collaborate effectively with all stakeholders on a project, navigate user needs, and anticipate technical possibilities and other skills used across various industries.
Teaching Partnership Program Available: 4+1 or 3+2 programs enable you to earn your bachelor’s degree at RIT and a master’s degree in education at one of our partner universities.
9 Majors That Launch Your Career in Digital Media
What is Humanities, Computing, and Design?
Humanities, computing, and design is a dynamic field of study that creates a bridge between the traditional liberal arts and the digital world, where critical thinking, cultural awareness, and communication integrate with digital technologies. A bachelor’s degree in humanities, computing, and design prepares you for emerging career opportunities that have resulted from professionals finding new and exciting ways to combine digital technologies and computing into everything from business and communications to education, history, museum studies, politics, public policy, and more.
Studying Humanities, Computing, and Design at RIT
RIT's bachelor of science in humanities, computing, and design pairs digital tools with computing to further a range of liberal arts fields, including anthropology, communication, culture, history, journalism, literature, and the arts. It creates new possibilities for these traditional fields by integrating digital technologies, computing skills, visual communication, data analytics, and more.
Career opportunities encompass endless ways to pair digital technologies with the liberal arts. For example:
- Journalists must have a strong foundation in social media and web content strategy as people turn to their digital devices to consume news and information.
- Advertising and marketing on social media are created using traditional market research to identify a target audience and advanced digital technologies to engage and track the behaviors of those users.
- Storytelling in games requires a writer to understand the function and gameplay of a particular interactive world as well as the creative writing skills to craft a captivating story.
- Visual communication (infographics, interactive content, motion graphics) must be dynamic, compelling, and effective as it’s used to present evidence in court cases, sell products in stores, and communicate instructions or directions.
- Museums and cultural institutions are creating new and exciting ways to integrate digital technologies to educate the public, engage visitors, and enhance the guest experience.
- Hotels, amusement parks, and resorts are turning to interactive apps that plan and manage guest experiences, wearables that unlock guest room doors and serve as your admission ticket, and a host of digital tools that enable online check-in, food ordering, and more.
RIT’s Degree in Humanities, Computing and Design
This major is uniquely interdisciplinary. You’ll pair course work in three of RIT’s colleges–College of Liberal Arts, Golisano College of Computing and Information Sciences, and College of Art and Design–to understand the historical and cultural contexts for, and to think critically about, how new technologies can impact traditional areas of the liberal arts.
Partnerships within RIT with the RIT Libraries, The Cary Graphic Arts Collection, and The RIT Press, as well as external relationships with The Library Company of Philadelphia and Malmö University in Sweden, provide distinctive opportunities for imagination and application.
As a student in the humanities, computing, and design major, you will learn to employ a range of tools and techniques, including:
- 3D design visualization
- Geospatial technology
- Electronic literature
The major also fosters critical analysis of digital culture, social media, and digital games. Team-based projects and public engagement are hallmarks of the program.
A Unique Pairing of Courses
The humanities, computing, and design major combines information science and technologies with the liberal arts to provide you with the integrative literacy increasingly necessary for careers in cultural institutions, government, educational institutions, and technology firms. You’ll take courses in:
- New media design
- Web and mobile design and development
- Database and data modeling
- Computing
Professional electives enable you to gain knowledge in areas you can apply directly to your professional pursuits, such as:
- Multi-platform journalism
- Digital design in communication
- Gaming and literature
- 2D animation and asset production
- Museums in the digital age
You’ll also gain broad knowledge as well as expertise in an area of specialization. A minor or immersion adds a secondary area of study.
Hands-On Experience to Gain Real-World Skills
In the humanities, computing, and design major, you will gain invaluable hands-on experience:
- A senior capstone project allows you to tackle a humanities computing problem and propose an innovative solution.
- At least one block of cooperative education and internship means full-time, paid career experience in industry.
- Team-based projects and lab courses.
- Study abroad or in an international co-op to enhance your understanding of global cultures.
Furthering Your Education in Humanities, Computing, and Design
Combined Accelerated Bachelor's/Master's Degrees
Today’s careers require advanced degrees grounded in real-world experience. RIT’s Combined Accelerated Bachelor’s/Master’s Degrees enable you to earn both a bachelor’s and a master’s degree in as little as five years of study, all while gaining the valuable hands-on experience that comes from co-ops, internships, research, study abroad, and more.
- +1 MBA: Students who enroll in a qualifying undergraduate degree have the opportunity to add an MBA to their bachelor’s degree after their first year of study, depending on their program. Learn how the +1 MBA can accelerate learning and position you for success.
RIT’s Teaching Partnership Programs
Whether your goal is to go into early childhood or elementary education, become a secondary education teacher with a content area specialty at the middle or high school level, or work in the higher education or counseling fields, RIT’s partnership programs with local universities provide a guided pathway to a career in teaching.
These 4+1 or 3+2 programs enable you to earn your bachelor’s degree at RIT and a master’s degree in education at one of our partner universities. As you progress, you’ll benefit from focused academic advising, career exploration opportunities, and resources for research, learning, and skill development.
RIT's humanities, computing, and design degree is eligible for RIT’s Teaching Partnership Program.
Learn more about RIT’s Teaching Partnership Programs.
Meet us on campus
Learn about academics, co-op and internships, financial aid, and more.
Apply for Fall 2025
First-year students can apply for Early Decision II by Jan. 1 to get an admissions and financial aid assessment by mid-January.
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Careers and Experiential Learning
Typical Job Titles
| Analyst/Programmer | Database Manager | Digital Media Archivist |
| Information Technology Coordinator | Interactive Exhibit Curator | Marketing and Communications Supervisor |
| Project Manager | Software Engineer | Strategy and Marketing Rep |
| UI/UX Designer | Web Developer |
Industries
Cooperative Education
What’s different about an RIT education? It’s the career experience you gain by completing cooperative education and internships with top companies in every single industry. You’ll earn more than a degree. You’ll gain real-world career experience that sets you apart. It’s exposure–early and often–to a variety of professional work environments, career paths, and industries.
Co-ops and internships take your knowledge and turn it into know-how. A liberal arts co-op provides hands-on experience that enables you to apply your knowledge in professional settings while you make valuable connections between course work and real-world applications.
Students in the humanities, computing, and design major are required to complete at least one cooperative education or internship experience.
Creative Industry Days
Connect with Design Industry Leaders
RIT’s Office of Career Services and Cooperative Education hosts Creative Industry Days, which connects students majoring in art, design, film and animation, photography, and select computing majors with companies, organizations, creative agencies, design firms, and more. Creative Industry Days are a series of events that allow you to network with company representatives and interview directly for open co-op and full-time employment positions.
Featured Work and Profiles
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VR Planetarium
During the fall term of 2020 and into the spring term of 2021, a four member team of capstone students conceived, designed, calculated and constructed a virtual reality planetarium: https:/...
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The Stories They Tell: Curating Online & Onsite Exhibitions
During Fall 2015, students enrolled in Professor Juilee Decker’s Cultural Informatics (MUSE 359) worked with RIT’s Archivist, Becky Simmons, and Associate Archivist, Jody Sidlauskas, to curate an...
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Buffalo State Insane Asylum: A Purposeful Recovery
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Friendship Album Project
Students in Tamar Carroll’s History of the Family in the U.S. course collaborated with the Library Company of Philadelphia to develop content for a web exhibit about the rare Friendship Albums in...
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Curriculum for 2024-2025 for Humanities, Computing, and Design BS
Current Students: See Curriculum Requirements
Humanities, Computing, and Design, BS degree, typical course sequence
| Course | Sem. Cr. Hrs. | |
|---|---|---|
| First Year | ||
| DHSS-101 | Computation and Culture The course provides a basic introduction to the application of computation in the research and practice of the humanities, arts, and social sciences. The class offers students entry to work with archival theory and practice; textuality and electronic scholarly communication; data mining, analysis, and visualization; the spatial and temporal “turns;” game studies and digital arts. The course offers hands on experimentation with software platforms available to create scholarly and artistic production and theoretical approaches to digital presentation. Students will complete assignments requiring conceptual, aesthetic, and practical approaches to digital engagement with cultural materials. While no programming knowledge is required, students will design and create an online project using tools and platforms that are considered standard practice in the field, and reflect critically on the utility of digital techniques in their dialogue with the humanities. Lecture 3 (Fall). |
3 |
| DHSS-102 | Industrial Origins of the Digital Age The central focus of this course will be the excavation of textual, visual, and sonic materials, obsolete or emerging. The archaeological metaphor evokes both the desire to recover material traces of the past and the imperative to situate those traces in their social, cultural, and political contexts. How does the digital age imagine backwards to the Industrial Age and vice versa? Is it true that virtually everything that is being invented now for a digital age had its origins in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century industrial age? (inventions of telegraphy and telephony, electricity, photography, cinema, the automobile, the Dewey Decimal and Library of Congress classification systems, muckraking and sensationalist journalism, celebrity culture, the skyscraper, the office, the typewriter, the Brownie camera). We will take a research approach that explores moments in which both familiar and unfamiliar devices have yet to emerge as significant or disappear as curiosities. Lecture 3 (Spring). |
3 |
| DHSS-200 | DHSS Seminar: Foundations This is a one-credit seminar course that assists DHSS majors in their professional development and prepares them to locate and obtain co-ops and jobs in their field. It also provides a forum for DHSS majors to receive feedback on their own creative projects in preparation for their senior capstones. Faculty and students will also discuss emerging events related to the field of DHSS. Students may take this course repeatedly for credit up to four times. Lecture 1 (Fall). |
1 |
| Choose one of the following: | 4 |
|
| GCIS-123 | Software Development and Problem Solving I A first course introducing students to the fundamentals of computational problem solving. Students will learn a systematic approach to problem solving, including how to frame a problem in computational terms, how to decompose larger problems into smaller components, how to implement innovative software solutions using a contemporary programming language, how to critically debug their solutions, and how to assess the adequacy of the software solution. Additional topics include an introduction to object-oriented programming and data structures such as arrays and stacks. Students will complete both in-class and out-of-class assignments. Lab 6 (Fall, Spring). |
|
| IGME-101 | New Media Interactive Design and Algorithmic Problem Solving I This course provides students with an introduction to problem solving, abstraction, and algorithmic thinking that is relevant across the field of new media. Students are introduced to object-oriented design methodologies through the creation of event-driven, media-intensive applications. Students will explore the development of software through the use of a range of algorithmic concepts related to the creation of applications by writing classes that employ the fundamental structures of computing, such as conditionals, loops, variables, data types, functions, and parameters. There is an early emphasis on object oriented concepts and design. (This course is restricted to students in NWMEDID-BS or NMDE-BFA with at least 2nd year standing or GAMED-MN students.) Lec/Lab 6 (Fall, Spring). |
|
| ISTE-140 | Web & Mobile I This course provides students with an introduction to internet and web technologies, and to development on Macintosh/UNIX computer platforms. Topics include HTML and CSS, CSS3 features, digital images, web page design and website publishing. Emphasis is placed on fundamentals, concepts and standards. Additional topics include the user experience, mobile design issues, and copyright/intellectual property considerations. Exercises and projects are required. Lec/Lab 3 (Fall, Spring). |
3 |
| YOPS-10 | RIT 365: RIT Connections RIT 365 students participate in experiential learning opportunities designed to launch them into their career at RIT, support them in making multiple and varied connections across the university, and immerse them in processes of competency development. Students will plan for and reflect on their first-year experiences, receive feedback, and develop a personal plan for future action in order to develop foundational self-awareness and recognize broad-based professional competencies. (This class is restricted to incoming 1st year or global campus students.) Lecture 1 (Fall, Spring). |
0 |
General Education – Artistic Perspective |
3 | |
General Education – Ethical Perspective |
3 | |
General Education – First-Year Writing (WI) |
3 | |
General Education – Social Perspective |
3 | |
General Education – Elective |
3 | |
| Second Year | ||
| DHSS-103 | Ethics in the Digital Era The course will examine various contemporary and global issues of digital citizenship and new ethical challenges raised by digital technology. The course will raise questions regarding how digital technology has changed citizenship practices: Who has access to full citizenship, and why? What responsibilities are entailed in digital citizenship? Themes may include the nature and value of digital technology; the relations between digital technologies and knowledge-making/meaning-making; the value of information privacy; the role of digital media in society and human interactions; issues arising from the life-cycle of new digital tools and data repositories; and questions broadly related to questions of accessibility, representation, and sustainability as applied to digital technologies. Topics may also include research ethics, piracy and file sharing, hacktivism, copyright and fair use, end-user license agreements, alternative news media, and participatory culture. Students will take up both broad ethical issues and specific professional codes and policy in diverse domains. Lecture 3 (Spring). |
3 |
| ISTE-230 | Introduction to Database and Data Modeling A presentation of the fundamental concepts and theories used in organizing and structuring data. Coverage includes the data modeling process, basic relational model, normalization theory, relational algebra, and mapping a data model into a database schema. Structured Query Language is used to illustrate the translation of a data model to physical data organization. Modeling and programming assignments will be required. Note: students should have one course in object-oriented programming. (Prerequisites: ISTE-120 or ISTE-200 or IGME-101 or IGME-105 or CSCI-140 or CSCI-142 or NACA-161 or NMAD-180 or BIOL-135 or GCIS-123 or GCIS-127 or equivalent course.) Lec/Lab 3 (Fall, Spring). |
3 |
| ISTE-240 | Web & Mobile II This course builds on the basics of web page development that are presented in Web and Mobile I and extends that knowledge to focus on theories, issues, and technologies related to the design and development of web sites. An overview of web design concepts, including usability, accessibility, information architecture, and graphic design in the context of the web will be covered. Introduction to web site technologies, including HTTP, web client and server programming, and dynamic page generation from a database also will be explored. Development exercises are required. (Prerequisites: (ISTE-120 or CSCI-140 or CSCI-141 or GCIS-127 or NACA-161 or IGME-105 or IGME-101 or NMAD-180 or GCIS-123) and (ISTE-140 or NACA-172 or IGME-230 or IGME-235) or equivalent course.) Lec/Lab 3 (Fall, Spring). |
3 |
| ITDL-102 | Unlocking Success: Career Prep for Liberal Arts Majors Throughout this semester-long course, students will delve into essential strategies and practical tools to navigate the transition from academia to the professional world. From clarifying career aspirations to mastering the art of negotiation, this course provides a roadmap for long-term success in today's competitive job market. Through interactive lectures, hands-on exercises, guest speakers, and real-world case studies, students will emerge from this course equipped with the knowledge, skills, and confidence to embark on fulfilling careers and thrive in the ever-evolving landscape of the professional world. (This class is restricted to UGRD-CLA students with at least 2nd year standing.) Lecture (Fall, Spring). |
3 |
| NMDE-111 | New Media Design Digital Survey I This project-based course is an investigation of the computer as an illustrative, imaging, and graphical generation tool. It develops foundational design skills in raster and vector image creation, editing, compositing, layout and visual design for online production. Emphasis will be on the application of visual design organization methods and principles for electronic media. Students will create and edit images, graphics, layouts and typography to form effective design solutions for online delivery. (This course is restricted to students in the WMC-BS or HCC-BS or NMDE-BFA or NWMEDID-BS or DIGHSS-BS program.) Lab 3, Lecture 2 (Fall, Spring). |
3 |
| NMDE-112 | New Media Design Digital Survey II Through formal studies and perceptual understanding, including aesthetics, graphic form, structure, concept development, visual organization methods and interaction principles, students will design graphical solutions to communication problems for static and interactive projects. Students will focus on creating appropriate and usable design systems through the successful application of design theory and best practices. Assignments exploring aspects of graphic imagery, typography, usability and production for multiple digital devices and formats will be included. (Prerequisite: NMDE-111 or NMAD-155 or equivalent course.) Lab 3, Lecture 2 (Fall, Spring). |
3 |
| STAT-145 | General Education – Mathematical Perspective A: Introduction to Statistics I This course introduces statistical methods of extracting meaning from data, and basic inferential statistics. Topics covered include data and data integrity, exploratory data analysis, data visualization, numeric summary measures, the normal distribution, sampling distributions, confidence intervals, and hypothesis testing. The emphasis of the course is on statistical thinking rather than computation. Statistical software is used. (Prerequisites: Any 100 level MATH course, or NMTH-260 or NMTH-272 or NMTH-275 or (NMTH-250 with a C- or better) or a Math Placement Exam score of at least 35.) Lecture 3 (Fall, Spring, Summer). |
3 |
General Education – Immersion 1 |
3 | |
General Education – Mathematical Perspective B |
3 | |
General Education – Global Perspective |
3 | |
General Education – Natural Science Inquiry Perspective |
4 | |
| Third Year | ||
| DHSS-200 | DHSS Seminar: Leadership This is a one-credit seminar course that assists DHSS majors in their professional development and prepares them to locate and obtain co-ops and jobs in their field. It also provides a forum for DHSS majors to receive feedback on their own creative projects in preparation for their senior capstones. Faculty and students will also discuss emerging events related to the field of DHSS. Students may take this course repeatedly for credit up to four times. Lecture 1 (Fall). |
1 |
| DHSS-377 | Media Narrative (WI-PR) The contemporary understanding of communication and narrative is quickly shifting in a world where media is ubiquitous. The "language of new media" is the thematic used in this course to discuss contemporary and historic forms of non-linear narrative. Students will explore the properties of non-linear, multi-linear, and interactive forms of narratives. This course will survey some of the possibilities, examining both traditional and new media such as oral storytelling, literature, poetry, visual arts, museum exhibits, architecture, hypertext fiction, Net Art, and computer games. Writers on communication culture, gaming, television, digital aesthetics, contemporary art and film, as well as synchronic narrative will be addressed. The focus is to develop critical tools to analyze contemporary media as well as a minimal level of practical implementation. Students will produce a final media project. Lecture 3 (Spring). |
3 |
| DHSS-499 | DHSS Co-Op (summer) A semester or summer-length experience in a professional setting related to the digital humanities and social sciences major, with a minimum of 350 hours. (Prerequisites: This class is restricted to DIGHSS-BS Major students with at least 2nd year standing.2nd Year and DIGHSS-BS) CO OP (Fall, Spring, Summer). |
0 |
| Choose one of the following: | 3 |
|
| IGME-382 | Maps, Mapping and Geospatial Technologies This course provides a survey of underlying concepts and technologies used to represent and understand the earth, a form of new media collectively referred to as Geospatial Technologies (GTs). Students will gain hands-on experience with GTs, including Global Positioning Systems (GPSs), Geographic Information Systems (GISs), remote sensing, Virtual Globes, and geographically-oriented new media such as mapping mashups. Students also will develop basic spatial thinking, reasoning, problem solving, and literacy skills. Lec/Lab 3 (Fall). |
|
| IGME-384 | Introduction to Geographic Information Systems This course introduces students to Geographic Information Systems (GIS) for understanding and representing people, places and culture through new media. Through applied research projects, students will learn how GIS is a support mechanism for spatially-oriented thinking, reasoning, literacy, and problem-solving at the global scale. Such global problems include international disaster management, digital humanities, climate change, and sustainable development. Course lectures, writing and reading assignments, and in-class activities cover a mix of conceptual, practical and technical GIS topics. Topics include interactions among people, places and cultures around the world, GIS data models, basic cartography, geodatabases, spatial data acquisition and creation, and spatial analysis. This general education course also examines GIS ethical issues such as privacy, information ownership, accuracy, and mapping and social power. Lec/Lab 3 (Spring). |
|
General Education – Immersion 2,3 |
6 | |
General Education – Scientific Principles Perspective |
3 | |
General Education – Electives |
3 | |
Professional Electives |
6 | |
Project Courses |
6 | |
| Fourth Year | ||
| DHSS-489 | DHSS Capstone I This course is intended for students in the DHSS program to produce critical and creative projects that apply digital technologies to a field of inquiry in the humanities and/or social sciences, while being guided by faculty advisors. Students will acquire a client (faculty member, not-for-profit organization, or cultural heritage site) and will be supervised by the advisor as they develop the research agenda, develop the project management plan, construct all necessary IRB materials, intellectual property documents, and copyright permissions, and develop a working prototype. This course will culminate in an online publishable project and a written rationale with theoretical grounding, as well as explanation of practical decisions and applications. It is expected that the project will be somewhat novel, will extend the theoretical understanding of previous work, and go well beyond any similar projects that they might have contributed to in any of their previous courses. The 6-hour course sequence is designed to be distributed over two consecutive semesters in order to allow for long-term, in-depth development of projects. Research 3 (Fall). |
3 |
| DHSS-490 | DHSS Capstone II This course is intended for students in the DHSS program to produce critical and creative projects that apply digital technologies to a field of inquiry in the humanities and/or social sciences, while being guided by faculty advisors. Students will acquire a client (faculty member, not-for-profit organization, or cultural heritage site) and will be supervised by the advisor as they develop the research agenda, develop the project management plan, construct all necessary IRB materials, intellectual property documents, and copyright permissions, and develop a working prototype. This course will culminate in an online publishable project and a written rationale with theoretical grounding, as well as explanation of practical decisions and applications. It is expected that the project will be somewhat novel, will extend the theoretical understanding of previous work, and go well beyond any similar projects that they might have contributed to in any of their previous courses. The 6-hour course sequence is designed to be distributed over two consecutive semesters in order to allow for long-term, in-depth development of projects. Research 3 (Spring). |
3 |
General Education – Electives |
12 | |
Open Electives |
12 | |
| Total Semester Credit Hours | 122 |
|
Please see General Education Curriculum (GE) for more information.
(WI-PR) Refers to a writing intensive course within the major.
* Please see Wellness Education Requirement for more information. Students completing bachelor's degrees are required to complete two different Wellness courses.
Professional Electives
| COMM-203 | Effective Technical Communication |
| COMM-223 | Digital Design in Communication In an increasingly visual culture, and culture of online user-created content, non-designers are called upon in the professional realm to illustrate their ideas. Graduates entering the workforce will encounter situations where they will benefit from possessing a visual communication sensibility and vocabulary to communicate effectively with a broad range of audiences, including professional designers. Creative approaches to challenges, such as visual thinking, are also shown to improve students’ comprehension and problem-solving abilities. Digital Design in Communication is an opportunity for undergraduates to receive an introduction to principles of visual message design from a critical rhetorical perspective. They will also get the opportunity to apply these principles to a variety of visual products such as advertisements, logos, brochures, resumes, etc. A variety of computer software applications are available to support the research, writing, visualization, and design of messages. Lecture 3 (Fall, Summer). |
| COMM-263 | Data Journalism This course covers how to report on, illustrate, find, and analyze records and databases, with emphasis on investigative reporting. Lecture 3 (Spring). |
| COMM-343 | Technology-Mediated Communication Technology-mediated communication (TMC) was originally defined as a form of electronic written communication. As networking tools advanced, TMC expanded to include new software developments, such as instant messenger and the web. Today, the term technology-mediated communication is used to refer to a wide range of technologies that facilitate both human communication and the interactive sharing of information through computer networks. Through readings, discussions, and observations of online behavior, students will be introduced to TMC terms and theories to further develop their TMC communication and critical thinking skills. Lecture 3 (Spring). |
| COMM-356 | Critical Practice in Social Media With the advent of virtual communities, smart mobs, and online social networks, questions about the meaning of human communication and how we construct our online and offline personal and professional identities need to be reevaluated. This course explores the relationship between social media and the construction of both individual and social identities as well as best practices for constructing the desired community or identity. Although the course is grounded in theory, it is equally committed to practice, and much of the class discussion and activity takes place in various online spaces. As a practicum, those who complete this course will know how to engage productively in practices such as tweeting, blogging, tagging, etc. and will develop an understanding of how these practices affect their construction of identity and community both personally and on behalf of an organization. Lecture 3 (Fall, Spring). |
| COMM-357 | Communication, Gender, and Media This course examines the relationship between gender and media communication with specific attention to how gender affects choices in mass media and social media practices. Students explore how gender, sexual orientation, sexuality and social roles, affect media coverage, portrayals, production and reception. They consider issues of authorship, spectatorship (audience), and the ways in which various media content (film, television, print journalism, advertising, social media) enables, facilitates, and challenges these social constructions in society. The course covers communication theories and scholarship as it applies to gender and media, methods of media analysis, and topics of current interest. Lecture 3 (Fall). |
| COMM-461 | Multiplatform Journalism |
| CRIM-290 | Computer Crime This course provides definitional, theoretical, and operational context for understanding computer-based competition, conflict and crime in the information age. Students study the history, nature and extent of computer-related crime, as well as differing types of computer criminals, their motivations and the methods they use to threaten, attack, compromise or damage physical, and cyber assets. The course considers legal and regulatory environments and the impact these have on policies and practices related to ethics in the management of information security, data encryption, privacy, and numerous other special topics. (Prerequisites: CRIM-110 or equivalent course.) Lecture 3 (Fall, Spring). |
| DHSS-488 | Special Topics A critical examination/practicum in an area of digital humanities not covered in other digital humanities and social sciences courses. Counts as a program elective for the DHSS degree program, and may be taken as a general education elective if approved by the general education committee. Lecture 3 (Biannual). |
| ENGL-215 | Text & Code We encounter digital texts and codes every time we use a smart phone, turn on an app, read an e-book, or interact online. This course examines the innovative combinations of text and code that underpin emerging textual practices such as electronic literatures, digital games, mobile communication, geospatial mapping, interactive and locative media, augmented reality, and interactive museum design. Drawing on key concepts of text and code in related fields, students will analyze shifting expressive textual practices and develop the literacies necessary to read and understand them. Practicing and reflecting on such new media literacies, the course explores their social, cultural, creative, technological, and legal significance. To encourage multiple perspectives on these pivotal concepts of text and code and their import, the course includes guest lectures by scholars and practitioners in these fields. Lecture 3 (Fall). |
| ENGL-315 | Digital Literature Since the initial development of the computer, writers have collaborated with programmers, illustrators, and soundscapists to create digital literatures. Following from radical techniques in print literatures such as concrete poetry, Choose Your Own Adventure novels, and reorderable/unbound fictions, digital literatures exploit the potential of digital formats to explore questions of interactivity, readership, authorship, embodiment, and power. In this class, we will learn to analyze and appreciate digital literatures not simply through their content, but also through the relation of content to form, media, programming platforms, and distribution formats. Our consideration of digital literatures will lead us to cell phones, web pages, video games, virtual reality environments, and genome sequencers. Lecture 3 (Fall). |
| ENGL-361 | Technical Writing |
| ENGL-373 | Media Adaptation This course introduces students to the field of adaptation studies and explores the changes that occur as particular texts such as print, radio, theatre, television, film, and videogames move between various cultural forms and amongst different cultural contexts. The course focuses upon works that have been disseminated in more than one medium. Lecture 3 (Fall). |
| ENGL-374 | Games and Literature Who studies game studies? Writing in games can often be hit or miss, so relying on an established story can provide support and allows the medium to evolve to cover more interesting stories than the typical mass-offering affairs. Still, literature and games are fundamentally different media- and as such these differences must be accounted for when mapping literature onto video games. Will game studies ever be as highly regarded as is critical scholarship on, say, literature? Can a video game possess substantial literary merit? Can a video game offer the same depth of characters and insight into the human condition as a novel? Do video games invite the player to do the same things that works of great literature invite the reader to do: identify with the characters, invite him to judge them and quarrel with them, and to experience their joys and sufferings as the reader’s own? In this course we will have these conversations and then go beyond. We will examine works that have visually evocative and varied settings; narratives that make readers wonder what is going to happen next; and a rapidly changing culture that prompts even more questions than it answers. Lecture 3 (Fall). |
| ENGL-375 | Storytelling Across Media This course introduces the basic elements of narrative, reflecting on key concepts in narrative theory such as – story and plot, narration and focalization, characterization, storyspace, and worldmaking – to enhance your understanding of how stories work and your ability to understand how such storytelling strategies convey their meaning and themes. After an initial exploration of storytelling traditions emerging from oral myth and short stories in print, we expand our inquiries into what a narrative is and what it can do by considering what happens to storytelling in graphic novels, digital games, and in recent electronic literature. Reflecting on competing definitions and varieties of narrative, the course raises the overarching question of why how we access, read, write, and circulate stories as a culture matters. Expect to read stories in a variety of media, to review basic concepts and conversations drawn from narrative theory, and to creatively experiment with the storytelling strategies we are analyzing in class. No familiarity with specific print, digital, or visual media necessary, though a willingness to read and reflect on stories in various media and to analyze their cultural significance will be essential. Lecture 3 (Spring). |
| ENGL-386 | World Building Workshop This course focuses on the collaboration construction of fictional worlds. Students will learn to think critically about features of fictional worlds, such as the social, political, and economic structures that influence daily life for the characters who inhabit that world. Students will also participate in extensive character development exercises, and then write short fiction from these characters’ perspectives describing the challenges they face in these worlds. Students will critique each other’s fiction and submit revised work.
Each class will include considerations of sophisticated fictional worlds in print and in other media and discuss world building features relevant to teach. (Prerequisites: ENGL-211 or completion of First Year Writing (FYW) requirement or equivalent course.) Lecture 3 (Fall). |
| ENGL-389 | Digital Creative Writing Workshop Digital creative writing involves much more than simply writing in digital formats - it can include computer-generated poetry, bots, hypertext fiction, Augmented Reality, or locative narrative. This course is for students who want to explore digital creative writing in all its forms. Through reading, discussion, and exercises, students will produce born digital writings in different applications. Students will learn style and craft techniques for digital environments while also exploring the relationship between content and digital applications. Peer critiques will help students rethink their work and become better editors. Programming knowledge is helpful but not required. This course can be taken up to two times for a total of six semester credit hours as long as the instructors are different. (Prerequisites: ENGL-211 or completion of First Year Writing (FYW) requirement or equivalent course.) Lecture 3 (Spring). |
| ENGL-450 | Free & Open Source Culture This course charts the development of the free culture movement by examining the changing relationship between authorship and cultural production based on a variety of factors: law, culture, commerce and technology. In particular, we will examine the rise of the concept of the individual author during the last three centuries. Using a variety of historical and theoretical readings, we will note how law and commerce have come to shape the prevailing cultural norms surrounding authorship, while also examining lesser known models of collaborative and distributed authoring practices. This background will inform our study of the rapid social transformations wrought by media technologies in last two centuries, culminating with the challenges and opportunities brought forth by digital media, mobile communications and networked computing. Students will learn about the role of software in highlighting changing authorship practices, facilitating new business and economic models and providing a foundation for conceiving of open source, open access, participatory, peer-to-peer and Free (as in speech, not beer) cultures. (Prerequisites: Completion of First Year Writing (FYW) requirement is required prior to enrolling in this class.) Lecture 3 (Spring). |
| ENGL-543 | Game-Based Fiction Workshop This course is for students who have completed a creative writing workshop and want to explore how games and rules can be used to produce unique and unpredictable narratives. Projects will include individual writing exercises, collaborative writing practice, and critiques of peer writing. Students will examine how different game mechanics produce different kinds of narratives and may be encouraged to develop their own game-based writing projects. Through the reading and discussion of other narrative media, students will learn the affordances and limitations of game-based storytelling systems. (Prerequisites: ENGL-386 or ENGL-389 or ENGL-390 or equivalent courses.) Lecture 3 (Spring). |
| FNRT-215 | Video Game Criticism This course will focus on the analysis of video games. Students will play and review classic games from the past as well as important newer games from different genres. Students will explore and discuss the formal and dramatic aspects of video games as works of art: imagery, technique, moral and ethical messages, social commentary, and historical significance. Lecture 3 (Annual). |
| HIST-324 | Oral History Oral history collects memories and personal commentaries of historical significance through recorded interviews. There are few opportunities for historical research that are more satisfying or more challenging than oral history. In this class, we will learn about oral history methods, techniques, and ethics. We will read, listen to, and watch some of the finest examples of the genre. Then we will go out and add to the world's understanding of its past by conducting oral histories of our own. For their final project in this course, students will work in teams to produce a podcast based on their own interview(s). Lecture 3 (Fall). |
| HIST-326 | Digital History Computers and their networks have fundamentally altered the ways that history is both produced and consumed. Sources in digital formats simultaneously present opportunities and challenges that force us to rethink what is possible in history. Doing history in a digital age forces us to engage with the issues and opportunities raised by such as topics as digitization and preservation, text mining, interactive maps, new historic methodologies and narrative forms, computational programming, and digital storytelling. Digital tools, including blogs, wikis, video sharing sites, and many others, help bring history to new audiences in different ways. In this course, we will investigate the landscape of digital history and tackle the exciting task of understanding and creating history in the digital age. Lecture 3 (Spring). |
| HIST-480 | Global Information Age The internet and cell phones seem to have turned us into world citizens of cyberspace. Programmers in Bangalore or Chennai now write software for U.S. companies, and doctors in India or Australia interpret the Cat-Scan or MRI images of US patients overnight. As bestselling author Thomas Friedman argues, the world is flat, that is competition for intellectual work is now global. Others have suggested that information technologies have led to global homogenization, with people around the world reading the same news, listening to the same music, and purchasing the same products. In this class, we will investigate the history of information and communication technologies to cast new light on these claims about our present-day technologies. This class is a small seminar which includes a research project. Lecture 3 (Spring). |
| IGME-101 | New Media Interactive Design Algorithmic Problem Solving I This course provides students with an introduction to problem solving, abstraction, and algorithmic thinking that is relevant across the field of new media. Students are introduced to object-oriented design methodologies through the creation of event-driven, media-intensive applications. Students will explore the development of software through the use of a range of algorithmic concepts related to the creation of applications by writing classes that employ the fundamental structures of computing, such as conditionals, loops, variables, data types, functions, and parameters. There is an early emphasis on object oriented concepts and design. (This course is restricted to students in NWMEDID-BS or NMDE-BFA with at least 2nd year standing or GAMED-MN students.) Lec/Lab 6 (Fall, Spring). |
| IGME-102 | New Media Interactive Design Algorithmic Problem Solving II This course provides students a continued introduction to problem solving, abstraction, and algorithmic thinking that is relevant across the field of new media. As the second course in programming for new media students, this course continues an object-oriented approach to programming for creative practice. Topics will include re-usability, data structures, rich media types, event-driven programming, loaders, XML, object design, and inheritance. Emphasis is placed on the development of problem-solving skills as students develop moderately complex applications. (Prerequisites: C- or better in IGME-101 or equivalent course and students in NWMEDID-BS or NMDE-BFA with at least 2nd year standing or GAMED-MN students.) Lec/Lab 6 (Fall, Spring). |
| IGME-119 | 2D Animation and Asset Production This course provides a theoretical framework covering the principles of animation and its use in game design to affect user experience. Emphasis will be placed upon principles that support character development and animations that show cause and effect. Students will apply these principles to create animations that reflect movement and character appropriate for different uses and environments. (This course is restricted to students in GAMEDES-BS or NWMEDID-BS or GAMED-MN students.) Lec/Lab 3 (Fall, Spring). |
| IGME-220 | Game Design & Development I This course examines the core process of game design, from ideation and structured brainstorming in an entertainment technology context through the examination of industry standard processes and techniques for documenting and managing the design process. This course specifically examines techniques for assessing and quantifying the validity of a given design, for managing innovation and creativity in a game development-specific context, and for world and character design. Specific emphasis is placed on both the examination and deconstruction of historical successes and failures, along with presentation of ethical and cultural issues related to the design and development of interactive software and the role of individuals in a team-oriented design methodology. Students in this class are expected to actively participate and engage in the culture of design and critique as it relates to the field. (This course is restricted to students in GAMEDES-BS or NWMEDID-BS or GAMED-MN or GAMEDD-MN YR 2-5 students.) Lec/Lab 3 (Fall, Spring). |
| IGME-320 | Game Design & Development II This course continues to examine the core theories of game design as they relate to the professional field. Beginning with a formalized pitch process, this course examines the design and development paradigm from story-boarding and pre-visualization through rapid iteration, refinement, and structured prototyping exercises to further examine the validity of a given design. Specific emphasis is placed on iterative prototyping models, and on methodologies for both informal and formal critique. This course also explores production techniques and life-cycle in the professional industry. (Prerequisites: (IGME-202 and IGME-220 or equivalent courses and GAMEDES-BS or NWMEDID-BS or GAMEDD-MN students) or (IGME-102 and IGME-220 or equivalent courses and GAMED-MN students).) Lec/Lab 3 (Fall, Spring). |
| IGME-382 | Maps, Mapping, and Geospatial Technologies This course provides a survey of underlying concepts and technologies used to represent and understand the earth, a form of new media collectively referred to as Geospatial Technologies (GTs). Students will gain hands-on experience with GTs, including Global Positioning Systems (GPSs), Geographic Information Systems (GISs), remote sensing, Virtual Globes, and geographically-oriented new media such as mapping mashups. Students also will develop basic spatial thinking, reasoning, problem solving, and literacy skills. Lec/Lab 3 (Fall). |
| IGME-384 | Introduction to Geographic Information Systems This course introduces students to Geographic Information Systems (GIS) for understanding and representing people, places and culture through new media. Through applied research projects, students will learn how GIS is a support mechanism for spatially-oriented thinking, reasoning, literacy, and problem-solving at the global scale. Such global problems include international disaster management, digital humanities, climate change, and sustainable development. Course lectures, writing and reading assignments, and in-class activities cover a mix of conceptual, practical and technical GIS topics. Topics include interactions among people, places and cultures around the world, GIS data models, basic cartography, geodatabases, spatial data acquisition and creation, and spatial analysis. This general education course also examines GIS ethical issues such as privacy, information ownership, accuracy, and mapping and social power. Lec/Lab 3 (Spring). |
| ISTE-260 | Design the User Experience The user experience is an important design element in the development of interactive systems. This course presents the foundations of user-centered design principles within the context of human-computer interaction (HCI). Students will explore and practice HCI methods that span the development lifecycle from requirements analysis and creating the product/service vision through system prototyping and usability testing. Leading edge interface technologies are examined. Group-based exercises and design projects are required. (Prerequisite: ISTE-140 or IGME-230 or NACA-172 or equivalent course.) Lec/Lab 3 (Fall, Spring). |
| LING-351 | Language Technology We will explore the relationship between language and technology from the
invention of writing systems to current natural language and speech
technologies. Topics include script decipherment, machine translation,
automatic speech recognition and generation, dialog systems, computational
natural language understanding and inference, as well as language
technologies that support users with language disabilities. We will also trace
how science and technology are shaping language, discuss relevant artificial
intelligence concepts, and examine the ethical implications of advances in
language processing by computers. Students will have the opportunity to
experience text analysis with relevant tools. This is an interdisciplinary
course and technical background is not required. Lecture 4 (Spring). |
| LING-581 | Intro to Natural Language Processing This course provides theoretical foundation as well as hands-on (lab-style) practice in computational approaches for processing natural language text. The course will have relevance to various disciplines in the humanities, sciences, computational, and technical fields. We will discuss problems that involve different components of the language system (such as meaning in context and linguistic structures). Students will additionally collaborate in teams on modeling and implementing natural language processing and digital text solutions. Students will program in Python and use a variety of relevant tools. Expected: Programming skills, demonstrated via coursework or instruction approval. Lecture 3 (Spring). |
| MUSE-225 | Museums & the Digital Age The digital revolution has profoundly influenced how we think about the world around us. Information once available only to experts is now accessible digitally to a much broader audience. Museums, archives, and libraries have adapted to this democratization of knowledge and decentralization of access in myriad ways. As visitors to museums—whether online or onsite—each of us is part of the creation, consumption, and reception of digital information. What does this mean for museums and for us as audiences and consumers of such information? How has the combination of digital technology and social media increased visitors’ abilities for interaction with cultural institutions, their collections, and other visitors? This course will examine the history and evolution of museum practices as they adapt to new technologies and rethink traditional museum practices. The course has no pre-requisite and is open to students of all majors. Lecture 3 (Fall). |
| MUSE-359 | Digital and Critical Curation This course introduces students to Cultural Informatics, the interdisciplinary field that examines the intersections of information technologies, information science, and cultural information centered in museums, libraries, and archives. Among the topics to be examined are: how information technologies are used in museums, libraries, and archives; how modern information systems have shaped the museum environment; the nature of convergence; the development of digital collections, digital curation, and online exhibitions; and the role and status of the information professional in the museum and cultural organizations. The course is designed around projects, case studies, and readings so that students gain hands-on experience working with information. The course has no prerequisite and is open to students of all majors. Lecture 3 (Fall). |
| MUSE-360 | Visitor Engagement & Museum Technologies All of us, as museum visitors, have the capacity to engage with collections and to create meanings as a result of such interaction. This course considers the history and theory of visitor engagement at museums, galleries, and sites of cultural heritage tourism; examines the import of technology into this history; and articulates the role of visitors as participants who curate their own experiences. Two key questions will be addressed in this course: 1) How does technology provide a platform for contribution, collaboration, co-creation, and co-opting of experiences among all visitors? and 2) Can technology mediate the best possible experience for visitors? The course has no prerequisite and is open to students of all majors. Lecture 3 (Spring). |
| PHIL-307 | Philosophy of Technology Technology is a ubiquitous and defining force in our world. This course investigates how our conceptions of technology have emerged within philosophy, as well as the role technology plays in shaping how we live and how we reflect upon questions of meaning and value in life. Technological modes of understanding, organizing and transforming the world shape our relationships with others, with ourselves and with nature at fundamental levels. We will explore how these modes have emerged and why they emerged so predominantly within a Western social and intellectual context. Lecture 3 (Fall). |
| PHIL-314 | Philosophy of Vision and Imaging This course examines how philosophers and others have understood the nature and primacy of sight. It explores how technologies of seeing and imaging have influenced theories of sight and our most dominant and authoritative practices of seeing and representing in the humanities and the arts, as well as in the natural and social sciences. The course will focus on the impact these theories and practices of seeing and representing both analogue and digital have on the nature of knowing, as well as on how they shape and mediate our experiences of personal and social identity and agency more generally. Lecture 3 (Fall). |
| STSO-441 | Cyborg Theory: (Re)thinking the Human Experience in the 21st Century The developing cybernetic organism or cyborg challenges traditional concepts of what it means to be human. Today medical science and science fiction appear to merge in ways unimagined a century ago. By exploring scientific and cultural theories, science fiction, and public experience, this class examines the history and potential of the cyborg in Western cultures. Lecture 3 (Spring). |
| VISL-383 | Traumatic Images This course investigates visual culture and its imagistic response to life's crises. Problems of identity and identification will be explored and confronted through works of photography, painting, mixed media, new media and film of the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries. Beginning with the late 19th Century vogue for images of hysterical women, crippled black-sheep family members and dead loved ones (as corpses and as ghosts), we then move on to consider the last century's fascination with pain and suffering, disease and violence, struggle and survival and then the 21st century's emphasis on terrorism. Specifically, we will focus on the gendering of images and imaging as disturbing pictures work to defy the formal and theoretical distinction between private and public, personal, and collective experience and manage the often conflicting responsibilities to self, family, religion, race, nation, and society. Lecture 3 (Spring). |
Project Courses
| ANTH-244 | Human Centered Design How do we imagine the people that we design for? How do social differences around race, gender and class impact how we design for others? How is design a cultural process? How can ethnography make for better design? This course introduces the fundamentals of the field of design anthropology with specific attention dedicated to disability studies and accessibility. The course explores how designers—from industrial designers, game designers to biomedical engineers—can use research-based practices to design better, reflecting the RIT mission to “leverage the power of technology, the arts, and design for the greater good.” We will begin by orienting ourselves to design thinking, exploring key conceptual frameworks from feminist scholarship, science and technology studies, disability studies and approaches to the social aspects of technical thinking. We will then explore different design domains, including access technology, global disability movements, universal design and UX design. Throughout the term we will learn about how ethnographic methods can create human-centered design by starting with lived experiences, exploring power relations and ultimately learning about the perspectives of those whom we design for. Lecture 3 (Fall or Spring). |
| ENGL-422 | Maps, Spaces, and Places This course takes as its premise that spatial thinking is critically important. Spatial thinking informs our ability to understand many areas of 21st century culture, as mobile interfaces and geospatial technologies enable us to engage with our surroundings in new ways. The study begins with the history maps and mapmaking, and explores how maps work. As students create representational, iconographic, satirical, image-based, informational, and other map forms, the course emphasizes the map as narrative. The course develops into an exploration of the ways, particularly in texts, that mapmaking creates cultural routes, mobile forms of ethnography, and ways of imagining travel and tourism in the era of globalization. The diverse writers represented in this course are rethinking space as a dynamic context for the making of history and for different organizations of social and communal life. (Prerequisites: Completion of First Year Writing (FYW) requirement is required prior to enrolling in this class.) Lecture 3 (Fall). |
| ENGL-543 | Game-Based Fiction Workshop This course is for students who have completed a creative writing workshop and want to explore how games and rules can be used to produce unique and unpredictable narratives. Projects will include individual writing exercises, collaborative writing practice, and critiques of peer writing. Students will examine how different game mechanics produce different kinds of narratives and may be encouraged to develop their own game-based writing projects. Through the reading and discussion of other narrative media, students will learn the affordances and limitations of game-based storytelling systems. (Prerequisites: ENGL-386 or ENGL-389 or ENGL-390 or equivalent courses.) Lecture 3 (Spring). |
| ENGL-379 | Virtual Worlds This course explores the art and narratives of virtual interactive environments. The study of visual and spatial storytelling in historic and contemporary art raises questions of social, cultural and political contexts as well as their impact on player experience. Through reading and analysis of art and video games, students will be exposed to different design techniques that visually express social concepts through mechanics, content and aesthetics. Students will create video game environments that incorporate conceptual skills learned in class. Lecture 3 (Spring). |
| ENGL-475 | Immersive Storytelling This course explores the interaction between narrative, environment, and game mechanics in immersive VR experiences. Immersive storytelling is evolving quickly, but current experiences exhibit several types of interaction-narrative structures within a continuum ranging from films to first person shooters. In this class, students will analyze VR experiences to learn current methods of immersive storytelling and then apply these concepts to design and build VR experiences through worldbuilding, interaction mechanics, content, and art. Lec/Lab 3 (Fall). |
| IGME-580 | IGM Production Studio This course will allow students to work as domain specialists on teams completing one or more large projects over the course of the semester. The projects will be relevant to experiences of the interactive games and media programs, but will require expertise in a variety of sub-domains, including web design and development, social computing, computer game development, multi-user media, human-computer interaction and streaming media. Students will learn to apply concepts of project management and scheduling, production roles and responsibilities, and their domain skill sets to multidisciplinary projects. Students will complete design documents, progress reports and final assessments of themselves and their teammates in addition to completing their assigned responsibilities on the main projects. (Prerequisites: (IGME-320 or equivalent course and GAMEDES-BS students) or (IGME-330 or equivalent course and NWMEDID-BS students).) Lec/Lab 3 (Fall, Spring, Summer). |
| IGME-581 | Innovation & Invention |
| IGME-589 | Research Studio This course will allow students to work as domain specialists on teams completing one or more faculty research projects over the course of the semester. The faculty member teaching the class will provide the research topic(s). Students will learn about research methodology to implement, test, and evaluate results of projects. Students will complete research reports and final assessments of themselves and their teammates in addition to completing their assigned responsibilities on the main projects. (This course is restricted to students in NWMEDID-BS or GAMEDES-BS with 3rd year standing.) Lec/Lab 3 (Fall, Spring, Summer). |
| MUSE-354 | Exhibition Design This course examines the history and practice of exhibition design. It reviews the history of exhibitions within the development of museum-like institutions. In this course the following aspects of exhibition design are considered: curatorial premise or theme, exhibition development timeline, exhibition site, contracts and contractual obligations, budgets and fundraising, publicity material, didactic material, and exhibition design. The course includes field trips to local institutions and collections throughout the term. Lecture 3 (Fall). |
| NMDE-201 | New Media Design Elements II Information design for static, dynamic and interactive multimedia integrates content with visual indicators. Legibility and clear communication of information and direction is important to the success of any user interface design. This course integrates imagery, type, icons, actions, color, visual hierarchy, and information architecture as a foundation to design successful interactive experiences. (Prerequisites: NMDE-102 or NMDE-112 or equivalent course and student standing in NMDE-BFA or HCC-BS or DIGHSS-BS program.) Lab 3, Lecture 2 (Fall). |
| NMDE-203 | New Media Design Interactive II This course extends previous interactive design and development experience and skills to emphasize interactive design principles and development. The emphasis in this course will be on the creative process of planning and implementing an interactive project across multiple platforms. Students will concentrate on information architecture, interactive design, conceptual creation, digital assets, visual design and programming for interactions. (Prerequisites: NMDE-103 or ISTE-140 and NMDE-112 and NMDE-201 or equivalent courses.) Lab 3, Lecture 2 (Spring). |
| NMDE-302 | New Media Design Graphical User Interface This course examines the user-centered and iterative design approaches to application and interactive development with a focus on interface design, testing and development across multiple devices. Students will research and investigate human factors, visual metaphors and prototype development to create effective and cutting edge user interfaces. (Prerequisites: NMDE-201 and NMDE-203 or equivalent courses.) Lab 3, Lecture 2 (Fall). |
| VISL-377 | Imag(in)ing Rochester |
| VISL-383 | Traumatic Images This course investigates visual culture and its imagistic response to life's crises. Problems of identity and identification will be explored and confronted through works of photography, painting, mixed media, new media and film of the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries. Beginning with the late 19th Century vogue for images of hysterical women, crippled black-sheep family members and dead loved ones (as corpses and as ghosts), we then move on to consider the last century's fascination with pain and suffering, disease and violence, struggle and survival and then the 21st century's emphasis on terrorism. Specifically, we will focus on the gendering of images and imaging as disturbing pictures work to defy the formal and theoretical distinction between private and public, personal, and collective experience and manage the often conflicting responsibilities to self, family, religion, race, nation, and society. Lecture 3 (Spring). |
| VISL-384 | Art of Dying This course explores the experience of dying a profoundly human and universal experience as it is represented by artists who are themselves facing immanent death. The unique and deeply personal process of each dying artist is crucially informed by social, cultural and historical as well as artistic contexts. The course will focus primarily on visual artists and writers living with and dying of disease - such as AIDS, cancer and cystic fibrosis as well as mortality and age. Topics such as aesthetics, artistic media, representation, grief, bereavement, illness, care-giving, aging, and the dying process will be considered within the context of issues of race, class, ethnicity, sexuality, gender and community values. Some of the artists covered will be Jo Spence, Hannah Wilke, Elias Canetti, Bob Flanagan, Herve Guibert, Tom Joslin, Laurie Lynd, Audre Lorde, Charlotte Salomon, Keith Haring, Frida Kahlo, Bas Jan Ader, Ted Rosenthal, Felix Gonzalez Torres, Keith Haring, Eric Steel, Derek Jarman, Eric Michaels, and David Wojnarowicz. We will also explore some of the critical theory of Roland Barthes, Michel Foucault, Elaine Scarry, Susan Sontag, and Ross Chambers. Lecture 3 (Spring). |
Admissions and Financial Aid
First-Year Admission
A strong performance in a college preparatory program is expected. This includes:
- 4 years of English with a strong performance is expected.
- 3 years of social studies and/or history with a strong performance is expected.
- 3 years of math is required and must include algebra, geometry, and algebra 2/trigonometry.
- 2-3 years of science.
Transfer Admission
Transfer course recommendations without associate degree
Liberal arts courses and basic information technology or computer science course work
Appropriate associate degree programs for transfer
Liberal arts with web development courses, and some information technology or computer science course work
Financial Aid and Scholarships
100% of all incoming first-year and transfer students receive aid.
RIT’s personalized and comprehensive financial aid program includes scholarships, grants, loans, and campus employment programs. When all these are put to work, your actual cost may be much lower than the published estimated cost of attendance.
Learn more about financial aid and scholarships
Related News
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October 29, 2024
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RIT students raise awareness about mural art through TunnelVision
Students are bringing mural art into the spotlight through TunnelVision, an immersive project designed to engage and inspire. The initiative transforms the residence hall tunnels into a vibrant gallery, showcasing student-created murals. It aims to foster community and spark conversations about public art on campus.
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December 13, 2023
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Resistance Mapping project provides a digital home for antiracist educational resources for K-12 educators
Resistance Mapping is a local, collaborative digital humanities project focused on how Monroe County, N.Y., has been shaped by histories of institutional racism and collective community resistance. Scholars and students affiliated with RIT’s humanities, computing, and design program and the University of Rochester’s Digital Scholarship at River Campus Libraries helped create a website to host the educational content.
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September 29, 2023
![a photo of trent and students holding worldbuilding artifacts]()
New Center for Worldbuilding and Storytelling Creates Community and Resource Network for the Imaginative
“Developing strengths in [worldbuilding] can help many types of professionals become better at what they do. Clearly, game designers, animators, and creative storytellers can benefit, but engineers, technologists, scientists, sociologists, and health care innovators, for example, can also because the process of envisioning and creating a world and all of its interactions can help test out ideas and inform solutions,” said Associate Professor (English) Trent Hergenrader, Ph.D., who will lead the new Center for Worldbuilding and Storytelling.
Contact
Program Contact
- Heather Roth
- Assistant Director of Recruitment and Retention Outreach
- Dean’s Office
- College of Liberal Arts
- 585‑475‑5456
- hmrgla@rit.edu