︎

Spring 2021  ︎ SUNY Purchase ︎ (ARTS395) Senior Capstone

Schedule Overview

(schedule is subject to change based on your feedback and necessity)

Week 01 ︎ 02/03/2021 ︎

  • Introductions & Expectations
  • Schedule Overview

  • HW︎
    • Introduce yourself and link to your portfolio in the class Slack workspace. Additionally, identify a block of time that you’d prefer to meet for future individual and group meetings. Refer to my youcanbook.me for reference.
    • Comment on at least three other peoples’ posts there.
    • Upload screenshots of that interaction to the assignment spreadsheet.
    • Upload your portfolio link to the assignment spreadsheet.

Week 02 ︎ 02/10/2021 ︎

  • Spiel: Portfolio strategies & website platforms
  • Introduction to Senior Project   

  • HW︎
    • Slack: Analyze your current portfolio status. State what you’d like to change and why. Look at other people’s work and provide suggestions for how they could improve their portfolio.
    • Add to the spreadsheet 5 things you want to/would change on your website and why
    • Add to the spreadsheet 10 proposals for different outcomes for your Senior Project. Describe each in at least 3 sentences.

Week 03 ︎ 02/17/2021 ︎

  • Spiel: Online job board strategies  & CV / Resumes

  • HW ︎
    • Create or share the most current version of your resume or CV.
    • Continuation from generating Senior Project ideas
      • Receive feedback on your previous proposals for your Senior Project (from me).
      • Whittle down your choices to your Top 3 that you’d potentially be ready to commit to.
    • Determine the audience for your project(Answer all of these questions/prompts in clear sentences, also avoid writing “anyone” for these questions, genuinely try to think about it.)
      • What is the demographic?
      • What age range are they?
      • Gender identification?
      • Ethnicity?
      • What is their income level?
      • What is your intention?
      • Is this a project (ie an art project or a product) for the general public?
      • Is this a project you want to use to “go viral”?
      • Is a project you want to use to get jobs?
      • Think of three people who you would want to show your project to. (industry leaders, creative directors, podcast hosts, celebrities, bon vivants, influencers, deities, anyone living or dead or immortal, this is an exercise. That being said if your goal is to get a job from this project I would encourage you to think of industry leaders or luminaries).

Week 04 ︎ 02/24/2021 ︎ (No class, sickness)

    • Mind map + proposal for Capstone project
    • (Slack) Portfolio website status

Week 05 ︎ 03/03/2021 ︎

  • Presentation of Capstone project proposals 

  • HW︎ 
  • Create a mindmap
    • Make sure that you have some indication of what your project is about, and explore what the deliverables can be.
    • Make sure that you can save your mindmap in a way that is clear and readable to other people. It’s fine if it starts as difficult to read handwriting, but make sure that you capture it in some way that is readable.
    • I will not set specific amount of nodes or specific size for the paper, but please give yourself the time and room to capture your idea. I would work at least 8.5 in. by 11 in. if you are drawing on a physical piece of paper. Give yourself at least half an hour for the writing out of the nodes.
    • If you made one last week already re-design it to make it a more powerful visual object.
    • Make sure your mindmap is saved as a .PNG, .JPG, or .PDF and is large enough for the smaller text to be read clearly.

  • Create a proposal presentation
    • Use the discoveries in your mindmap and your reflection on it to help you create a presentation.
    • Your presentation should walk through the materials and information we’ve already been collecting and walk through the current incarnation of your idea. It should contain the following.
      • An intro about you and your work.
      • An introduction to what your idea is.
      • Sketches giving some idea of the project as well as similar work you have done that could be used for this.
      • An explanation of what the project will involve in terms of deliverables. (It is okay if this changes later)
      • A rough assessment of your timeline for the project (we will continue to flesh this out)
    • It should be ~5 minutes. (I may cut you off if you go over, please be respect your peers and stick to this).
    • Please make the individual slides available as a .PDF. (All the major applications are able to do this.
    • Please make sure your folder contains your presentation itself.

Week 06 ︎ 03/10/2021 ︎

  • Proposal Presentations pt.1
  • HW︎
    • résumé and cover letter v.2
    • Capstone project timeline

Week 07 ︎ 03/17/2021 ︎

  • Proposal Presentations pt.2
  • HW︎
    • portfolio website progress

Week 08 ︎ 03/24/2021 ︎

  • Spiel: Approaching Creative Blocks & Setbacks
  • HW︎
(At this point your project should be well underway, please assume that “working on your senior project” is your homework)

Week 09 ︎ 03/31/2021 ︎

No Class! (Spring recess)


Week 10 ︎ 04/07/2021 ︎

No Class!


Week 11 ︎ 04/14/2021 ︎

  • Spiel: time management & project management
  • Individual meetings on project status pt. 1

Week 12 ︎ 04/21/2021 ︎

  • Individual meetings on project status pt. 1
  • HW︎
    • (Slack) social media platforms and strategies

Week 13 ︎ 04/28/2021 ︎

  • Spiel: emails and code switching
  • guest speaker TBA

Week 14 ︎ 05/05/2021 ︎

  • Spiel: personal marketing and promotion
  • Spiel: freelancing
  • Introduction final review

Week 15 ︎ 05/12/2021 ︎

  • final presentations pt.1

Week 16 ︎ 05/19/2021 ︎

  • final presentations pt.2