I am planning on doing interactive media in college but i dont know wat to expect from the course, as i have a bit of photoshop experiance and on other softwears i dont want to do the course if its going to just teach likr the basics of photoshop..etc

Has any1 in this forum done or is doing this course could you tell me what kinda of thigs you do

and what kinda level the course is

 

Thank you

I'm actually doing Interactive Media in university at the moment. I've only completed the first year so far but I have to say I have learned a great deal in that time. I think that the first year of any course is just an introduction, then they throw you into some of the harder stuff where you can expand your knowledge of that particular area.

 

So far, we've studied some Photoshop (not a great deal but enough to get started), and like you I already had experience in that but I did still pick up parts of designing in Photoshop that I had no idea about.

 

We also learned how to use CSS with HTML in Dreamweaver which was good fun and I loved, although I thoroughly recommend learning to hand code (X)HTML and CSS before dipping into Dreamweaver.

 

We used Director and then later on Flash to create some interactive products, one was an interactive guide for new university students and the flash project I made a small Role Playing Game which was extremely fun to work on and having not touched flash before I learned a lot with that.

 

We did some audio recording stuff, which I understand is necessarry for the course, but I personally found it quite boring.

 

Interaction design I picked a lot up from, since it teaches you how to design just about anything for interactive use and you pick up quite a lot of skills with that.

 

As with most uni courses, there's always one module per semester that is utterly boring and pointless. Because our rooms are situated in the art buildings we had to write essays on artists which just was completely pointless and I didn't learn a thing from, but it's a part of the course so I pushed on and did it anyway.

 

The great thing about the course is that we had no exams. But don't let that fool you. There's a lot of hard work to be done in Interactive Media, since it's all project based and lasts for a whole semester, so they expect a whole semesters work. Personally I hate exams so it's perfect for me.

 

As for the second year of the course, I think we'll be dipping into some PHP in Dreamweaver (again i recommend learning to hand code this first or to at least learn how to modify existing PHP) which I'm looking forward to, as well as expanding on the things we learned in the first year.

 

I hope that helped some. I really enjoy the course a lot and I find it really useful to talk with other students to throw around ideas for your designs. The feedback I've had just from fellow students has improved the way I work tenfold.

I'm actually doing Interactive Media in university at the moment. I've only completed the first year so far but I have to say I have learned a great deal in that time. I think that the first year of any course is just an introduction, then they throw you into some of the harder stuff where you can expand your knowledge of that particular area.

 

So far, we've studied some Photoshop (not a great deal but enough to get started), and like you I already had experience in that but I did still pick up parts of designing in Photoshop that I had no idea about.

 

We also learned how to use CSS with HTML in Dreamweaver which was good fun and I loved, although I thoroughly recommend learning to hand code (X)HTML and CSS before dipping into Dreamweaver.

 

We used Director and then later on Flash to create some interactive products, one was an interactive guide for new university students and the flash project I made a small Role Playing Game which was extremely fun to work on and having not touched flash before I learned a lot with that.

 

We did some audio recording stuff, which I understand is necessarry for the course, but I personally found it quite boring.

 

Interaction design I picked a lot up from, since it teaches you how to design just about anything for interactive use and you pick up quite a lot of skills with that.

 

As with most uni courses, there's always one module per semester that is utterly boring and pointless. Because our rooms are situated in the art buildings we had to write essays on artists which just was completely pointless and I didn't learn a thing from, but it's a part of the course so I pushed on and did it anyway.

 

The great thing about the course is that we had no exams. But don't let that fool you. There's a lot of hard work to be done in Interactive Media, since it's all project based and lasts for a whole semester, so they expect a whole semesters work. Personally I hate exams so it's perfect for me.

 

As for the second year of the course, I think we'll be dipping into some PHP in Dreamweaver (again i recommend learning to hand code this first or to at least learn how to modify existing PHP) which I'm looking forward to, as well as expanding on the things we learned in the first year.

 

I hope that helped some. I really enjoy the course a lot and I find it really useful to talk with other students to throw around ideas for your designs. The feedback I've had just from fellow students has improved the way I work tenfold.

 

Thanks for taking you time to reply....I really dont know what to expect from this course...I am ment to enrol for it oon the 28th in my local college...I think i will go forward with it.....my main problem is learning stuff i alredi know but as u said u learn some new during the course....Also you said you will be learning Html/css i will be looking forward to that

I just finished doing Interactive Media at my local college, I don't know if the college course is different to the university one (my course was for two years and a BTEC national diploma, uni courses are typically for three years), but it sounds quite similar to what Angelssin described.

 

We started off the year by creating a website design in Photoshop and were then told we were going to code it into a full website, I was quite interested untill I learned we were going to be using a WYSIWYG program, even worse was that I learned we were going to be using Freeway for Mac, which is even worse than Micrsoft Frontpage as it simply flattens all the content into images, uses image maps for navigation and claims tableless code, which it does create as it uses absolute positioning everywhere.

 

I discussed using Freeway with my tutor, trying to explain that it is a bad practice to use for design, in the end he came around and stated that he would review the module and discuss using Dreamweaver instead with the other staff, they didn't originally use it as it was considered more difficult to use than Freeway, so I didn't even bother discussing coding by hand as I doubt they would even consider it.

 

Anyway back on topic, we had to go on quite a few trips with our cameras, where we had to take numerous photographs based on certain themes, one time we went to the Tate Modern in London and as soon as we were happy that we had completed the task we were allowed to spend the rest of the day around London. Just an FYI, if you didn't have a camera the college provided you with one.

 

Then we had to do historical studies, which was probably my most hated part of the course, we had to look at past artists and designers and how they're creations could have influenced modern design. Next was an interactive piece using Director, we had to create a menu for an interactive CD, which I found rather easy once I got a hang on how the program worked, though I think flash is more widely used which we were told to expect to use in the second year.

 

Photoshop was something we were taught how to use alot, as well as Illustrator and InDesign, I later learned that the course I had chosen was more geared towards the actual design side, rather than the code side, another college which was actually linked to the one I was studying at did the same course with a more code orientated outlook. After considering it, I stayed were I was, I knew how to hand code a website and the only other thing I was interested in was Flash, but we had started covering that on my current course and even dabbled with a little bit of actionscript.

 

Other projects included a two page spread as well as a cover for a Magazine, you had to design it and do some research into a topic and write an essay to go into it. On the topic of Essays, we also had to write another one about African sculpture art, seems completely irrelevant but as it's part of the course you to have do it.

 

We also worked with video, at this point I was glad we used iMacs as for video editing, as for someone whose never done video editing before, iMovie is as easy as it gets and it is still quite powerful.

 

There were tons of other projects, most of them I enjoyed, however for every project we had to do sketchbook work, it was actually more important than the finished article as it should show all your research, ideas and current work. If doing sketchbook work is an important part of your course it is a good idea to get used to it straight away, I spent my last two months trying to justify my finished designs and projects, as I had left the sketchbooks on the side and just started working straight away on the current project.

 

Also, like Angelssin said, it is all project based work, it is way better than exams in my opinion, but if I did it again I would get it all out the way straight away instead of leaving it all to the end of the year.

 

If you are interested I have a word document with the scenario and required criteria for every unit we had to do, please don't expect the course you are doing to be the same as this as these are usually created by the tutor to meet the requirements from the qualifications board, but it should give you an insight into how the course is structured and marked, assuming it is anywhere near as similar as the one I did.

 

Anyway I am now going onto to do a BA [Hons] in Interactive and Motion Design at university (which I suspect is similar to what Angelssin may be doing)

 

So the short answer to your query is yes, you do the basics of photoshop, but you learn how to use the array of features it provides and you also use Illustrator and InDesign, you are also shown how to use programs like Director and Flash (my tutor on a friday was a flash guru so if you wanted to learn more about it he was always happy to help).

 

Well I hope I've helped, sorry for the huge reply, got a bit carried away

 

Cheers, 4lun

 

PS. Incase you were interested, the course I did was worth round three A-Levels assuming you can get a triple Merit profile, if you can get Distinctions it is worth even more.

From what i have heard from you two i thik i will stear clear away from that course and do Alevels in graphic design instewad...i think is going to be very simillar to a course i took in web design in my summer holidays for a week...And we were asked tom ake a website and i made a pretty simply site wit dreamweaver and the teacher was so amazed by it..in the end it seems that i knew more about web design than him..i even sometimes had to teach him to use the bl**dy pc ...lool

 

Thanks for helping me make this decision...

 

Thanks again