Shamach Campbell

10/12/15

ENG 1101

Communication Design: AKA Graphic arts

My name is Shamach and my major here at the New York City College of Technology is Communication Design, also known as Graphic Arts. I would like to work as a Professional Graphic Designer and Animator. I feel that graphic arts is the best career choice for me because it not only gives me the freedom of being able to create anything from scratch, but it also allows me to become recognized as an individual capable of amazing artistic and communication skills. Ever since I was young I’ve always had an interest in arts and animation, but what really made me take a curiosity in graphic arts was the chance to make a video game. Now three years later I have been practicing how to do 3d modeling and create amazing scenes, and I feel that if I were to do it professionally it could open up a lot of opportunities for me. I can make tons of cash by making commissions, animate and sell stock footage, even also create ads, and the best part is I could work from home. It can also help me with social skills like giving presentations to other companies and help people communicate through visual content. But I think the absolute best part about being a graphic artist is that I have the opportunity to appeal to an audience that could not only like my work but, respects me for it as well as the things you do. In this essay I will not only be stating the reasons for choosing communication design as my major, but and I will also talk more about how I plan to exceed in my major and future career.

The name of my major is called communication design; basically it’s a mix between design and informational development and it’s my job to use those designs to connect with people. Right now I am learning how to use not only the adobe photo editing programs, but I am also learning more about art and its meaning. I go to the School Of Technology And Design and the degree I am after that is available according to the New York City College of Technology catalog, is my “Associates in Applied science in Communication Design.” After graduating with this degree I will have not only acquired an array of visual communication skills, but I would have also learned a ton of different design and animation techniques like proper lighting and sculpting. When it comes to finding a career, there are a lot different choices I can pick in terms of my career. According to the bureau of labor statistics occupational outlook hand book some of the careers I could be part of include things like web designing, advertisement promoter, or even a market manager. There is as the possibility of working for a much larger company that could use someone like me, for example if I decide to work on ads for Samsung or work on animations for Illumination Arts studios.

One of the reasons I want a career in professional graphic design and animation is because of overall job setting and benefits. According to the bureau of labor statistics occupational outlook hand book, on average most professional graphic artist can make up to $40,000 annually. Not to mention it also depends on the type of graphic designer you are, whether it is designing websites making up to $60,000 annually or doing advertising promotion and market management for a large company and make $110,000. However, most of the time professional companies require you to have a bachelor’s degree to work for them. Since I am just going after my Associates in Applied science in Communication Design, my plan is to start doing freelance work to build up my professional portfolio. Some of the ways I can do that are by, selling 3d and 3d printed models online, I can start do art commissions and advertisements for small companies, and I could also become an indie game developer. And if all else fails I can always take some health course and become a medical illustrate, or even work for YouTube. But it not just about the money that makes it interesting, it’s also the potential growth in my computer and social skills.

Another reason why Graphic arts is the best career choice for me because, it can also help me with social skills like giving presentations to other companies and help people communicate through visual content. Back then I wasn’t the most open person, I usually kept to myself and always wonted talk to people about my art skills. But in order for me to be taken seriously as both an artist and designer, I had to learn how to open up, talk to people, and listen to every word they had to say to learn even more about them. As a graphic artist my job is to create works of art that people will not only understand, but makes them think and the best way to do that was to sit down and talk to that client, audience, or company. According to a recent article called “20 years of change: graphic design in past present & future decades,” the author talked about how as technology gets more and more advanced, designs need to keep advancing as well. He also says that it not just about making what the client wants but what he wanted as well. This is because even though the client my think they know what I want, it’s important for the designer to come up with something new and innovative. It’s these designs that allow those clients or companies to understand a new form of communication in the coming future. It’s with these skills that need to learn in order to appeal to an audience.

Another reason why Graphic arts is the best career choice for me because, I have the opportunity to appeal to an audience that may like my work and perhaps respect my dedication and hard work. The entire purpose of communication design is to teach people how to think critically, and creatively to solve visual communication problems. With my creations I will not only have a unique style people may love but I will be able to connect with them, and learn from them to enhance my craft. According to the article “20 years of change: graphic design in past present & future decades,” they talk about how as the world of design changes, people start learning how to recognize different types of creativity trends and eventually they buy into it. In the past some people might often have tried to change it themselves, and now some of those people are becoming sponsors, patrons even. Without other external influences, this can allow designers to do much more with their creations; it gives them the chance to say more in very different ways. By having new and innovative ideas and creations, I can connect with an audience and understand what they feel or think about when I introduce them to a design. I wouldn’t be restricted by anyone’s expectations, I can teach them to see differently. Through this my work will have meaning and depth, and it can become recognized for significance and creativity. In the end both audience and I can get what we want, better art value, better opportunities and even better experiences.

In conclusion, I feel that graphic arts is the best career choice for me because it not only gives me the freedom of being able to create anything from scratch, but it also allows me to become recognized as an individual capable of amazing artistic and communication skills. My goal is to not only to become recognized for these skills but to be able to make enough money to support myself. I also want to be able to improve my social skills, I may not like talking in front of a large crowd but I feel that I can eventually learn how to do it in the future. I want to be someone who can become well known for his messages and not just for his art. Lastly I feel that with enough time and effort I won’t just be a designer, I will become a well-known Graphic artist.

Citation page

http://www.bls.gov/ooh/arts-and-design/graphic-designers.htm#tab-7

http://go.galegroup.com.citytech.ezproxy.cuny.edu:2048/ps/i.do?&id=GALE|A263667256&v=2.1&u=cuny_nytc&it=r&p=AONE&sw=w&authCount=1

http://www.citytech.cuny.edu/catalog/docs/catalog.pdf page 199

William Santiago

What do I want to be in life?

As we grow up, the majority of us are told that we need to go to college if we wish to be successful in life in any regard. Whether it be to make big bucks someday, or to hopefully make a name for ourselves. It is engraved into our subconscious that college is where we need to be. It is taught to us at an early age that college will provide us the foundation that will enable us the ability to pursue our desired professions. While being told this on a frequent basis, it got me thinking to myself as I grew older, “what do I want to be in life?” With time, I eventually had an idea of what I wanted to pursue as a career. I wanted to become the kind of engineer that can build cars from the ground up. This passion of mine developed during the period of my childhood where I was surrounded by cars all the time. Once I figured out what I wanted to be in life, due to the consistent persistence by my parents of being told that “you have to go to college in order to become somebody” and the idea of hopefully someday being able to build cars, I decided to take it upon myself to seek out a major to allow me to do so. Hi, my name is William Santiago. I am eight teen years old, and attending The New York City College of Technology. I chose to attend this college because it provided me an opportunity to seek out a degree in the field that I wish to work in someday. That major so happens to be Mechanical Engineering.  I will like to discuss with you about the major that I have decided to enroll in, why I chose to enroll in this major, some background information based on my major, as well as the job that I hope to one day get after I obtain my degree, as well as what I will need to do in order to get through college successfully and attain a job in my desired profession.

Mechanical Engineering is the branch of engineering that deals with design, construction, and use of machines. According to the American Society of Mechanical Engineering (asme), “Mechanical engineering dates to ancient Greece and China, where mechanisms like screw pumps, steam engines, clocks, seismometers, and even differential gears were invented. Chain drives, escarpments, crankshaft, and camshafts date to the Middle Ages. Mechanical Engineering turned analytical with Newton’s Laws of Motions and the invention of calculus. By 1825, the U.S had three schools of Engineering: the U.S Military Academy, Norwich Univ., and Renssealaer Polytechnic Institute” (asme par #1).  As you can see, Mechanical Engineering dates way back. With the many years that have passed since the dawn of Mechanical Engineering, the industry itself has changed vastly. Due to the constant evolution of modern day technology, this has enabled Mechanical Engineers to do their job much more efficiently and effectively. Now, you may be asking yourself, “What does Mechanical Engineering entail?” Well, according to the overview of a Mechanical Engineer on the web page sokanu.com, “A mechanical engineer is someone who designs, develops, builds, and tests mechanical devices, including tools, engines and machines” (sokanu par. 1).

Being a Mechanical Engineer sounds all well and good. However, one may wonder how exactly I would be able to pursue a career building cars with a major such as Mechanical Engineering, rather than doing something much more simplistic and go for a specialized major in Automotive Engineering. My reasoning behind this is pretty straight forward. I want to have multiple opportunities in terms of what profession I will have while being a part of the work force. I see Mechanical Engineering as a very broad kind of major which will enable me to be able to expand my horizons in this way. Although I would really like to build cars one day, I would rather attain a major in which I have more opportunities to find various professions, rather than being confounded within one major that specializes in something too specific. Yet, even with the fact being that I may not be going directly towards a profession in building cars, Mechanical Engineering is such a broad field that with a Bachelor’s Degree in Mechanical Engineering, I will still have the ability to get and secure a job manufacturing vehicles.

In order to become a Mechanical Engineer, the first thing I would have to get done is attain a Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering. In order to do this in a timely fashion, I will have to get through 4 to 5 years of college. Of course, in order to attain any degree, there are requirements that one must follow. Since I am a student at The New York City College of Technology, I am currently enrolled in their Associate in Applied Science program (AAS). The reason as to why I am currently in their AAS program and not their BTech Degree program is because I am currently an ASAP student. The ASAP program is an accelerated studies program that is situated in selected CUNY schools throughout New York City. It so happens that my college so happens to be one of them. This program is designed to aid students with attaining their Associates degree in a timely fashion or even sooner, and for those who seek a Bachelor’s degree, they will help in transitioning you over into the Bachelor’s program based on your major. The ASAP program only aids with selected majors, luckily enough for me, Mechanical Engineering is one of those majors.

I chose to enroll myself as an ASAP student primarily due to the benefits the program has to offer you. These benefits include a semester long Metro card, a $500 tuition voucher for the year, a personal college advisor, early registering for classes, as well as the benefit of being a part of the  ASAP community. I also saw joining the ASAP program as an opportunity to get the first half of my college journey over with quickly, then move on to the good stuff. The only detriment to the ASAP program is that once I’m finished with the Associates portion of my college career, I will no longer be an ASAP student, and I won’t be provided with the luxuries that an ASAP student has.

When it comes to what I have to do in the program that I am currently enrolled in, I am required to take certain courses in order to complete the AAS program in Mechanical Engineering. According to the New York City College of Technology College Catalog 2015-2016 in the Mechanical Engineering Technology Section, the overview of the program states that, “The Mechanical Engineering Technology program, accredited by the Engineering and Technology (ETAC/ABET), provides the fundamental knowledge and skills necessary for success in a broad range of technical careers” (College Catalog 277). With this being stated alone in just the overview of the AAS program, since I previously stated that I would like to get a degree in a major that would provide me with opportunities in a much broader field of work, finding out this information from the college catalog gives me the hope that I’ll have multiple opportunities to choose from when it comes to entering the work force.

With Mechanical Engineering being my major of choice, I would need to know what kind of work would be expected of me to get done, as well as a rough idea of what I would be making as a salary. Well, according to the Occupational Outlook Hand Book “The median annual wage for Mechanical Engineers was $80,580 in 2012”. Mind you, this was the median annual wage 3 years ago. So by the time I have attained my bachelor’s degree, the median annual pay for Mechanical Engineers may end up being far greater. When it comes to what a Mechanical Engineer does exactly, the list is quite extensive. The Occupational Outlook Hand Book also states that “Mechanical Engineers design and oversee the manufacturing of many products ranging from medical devices to new batteries. Mechanical engineers design power-producing machines such as electric generators, internal combustion engines, and steam and gas turbines as well as power-using machines, such as refrigeration and air-conditioning systems. Mechanical engineers design other machines inside buildings, such as elevators and escalators. They also design material-handling systems, such as conveyor systems and automated transfer stations. Like other engineers, mechanical engineers use computers extensively. Computers help mechanical engineers create and analyze designs, run simulations and test how a machine is likely to work, and generate specifications for parts.”(Occupational outlook hand book, What Mechanical Engineers do. Duties). As you can see, Mechanical Engineers are responsible for many things that we need for mass production, as well as convince.

However, the job of a Mechanical Engineer isn’t an easy one. Not only does it require the proper skills and know how in order to get the job done efficiently and effectively, it also requires the proper tools. Stated in Planning And Analysis of Mechanical Assembly Sequence In Design Engineering “Due to the extensive influence of assembly work on the cost and quality of machines and mechanical devices, a constructor should have at his disposal an efficient tool for planning the proper assembly sequence and evaluating a designed construction in terms of assembly requirements. He should be able to choose the most advantageous sequence of assembly operations. Hence, design for assembly should be included concurrently in the design process. Meeting these conditions will prevent constructions not following assembly process requirements.”(Planning and Analysis of Mechanical Assembly Sequence In Design Engineering.5.). So with this being said, if a Mechanical Engineer doesn’t have the proper tools for the job, they will not be able to do the Job.

I recently experienced this first hand during my first Lab in my Mechanical Engineering class. We were required to create a cover plate based off of a template that was given to us. You could say that the template is the “blueprint” for the project. As we were learning how to use all of the complex machinery in the lab for the first time, everything was all and well. We were split into groups of 4 people, and my group was doing really well. We had done everything there was needed to do. All that was left for us to get done was to utilize a Surface Grinder in order to create a smooth finish on the top face of the cover plate. It was here that everything went wrong. The Machine that my group had couldn’t efficiently set a zero value when you would move the plate as close to the grinder as possible in order to start grinding. Since we couldn’t properly set a zero value on the top surface of the cover plate, we could not get the proper measurements for our cover plate. Even though we were a few decimal points off because of this unfortunate turn of events, in the real world of manufacturing, those few decimal points mean your job and livelihood, as well as someone on that elevator you built. It goes to show that if you do not have the right tools for the job, you just can’t get the job done.

As you can see, Mechanical Engineering is a pretty important profession to take up. Although I may not be able to build cars as I would like, the thought of just designing and being a part of big projects that need Mechanical Engineers in order to execute them really catches my interest. It allows me to expand my horizons as I always love to do and see what the profession would really be like first hand. However, before I even think of pursuing a profession in the field of Mechanical Engineering, I will be required to attain a bachelor’s degree in this major first. In order to do that, I’ll have to acquire every bit of knowledge that I can from each class that I take during my college career. I’ll make whatever careless mistake during a Lab in order to learn from it, rather than in the workforce and lose my job. Yet, it won’t be an easy task to accomplish. However, nobody ever said things would be easy. With that being said, I believe it is time for me to set out on pursuing what I want to be in life.

Works Cited

Department of labor. Burial of labor statistics “Computer Hardware Engineering”.

Occupational Outlook Handbook. (OOH) Washington: Burial of labor statistics, 8 Jan 2014. Web . 2 November 2015.

New York City College of Technology College catalog 2015-2016 (City Tech) New York: NewYork City Technology, 2015.PDF

Sasiadek Michal. “Planning And Analysis Of Mechanical Assembly Sequences In Design

Engineering — Part I: The Method. “ Technicki Vjesnik / Technical Gazette 22.2 (2015): 337-342. Academic Search Complete Web. 5 Nov. 2015

www.asme.org. American  Society of Mechanical Engineers.

Web. 1 Nov. 2015

www.sokanu.com. Sokanu. par.1

Web. 30 Oct. 2015

For today’s class, you read Carlson, “Nicholas Carr on the ‘Superficial’ Webby Mind,” http://goo.gl/VqyHVm and Carr, “A writer of books, essays, and ephemera,” http://www.nicholascarr.com. During your summary writing during the first ten minutes of class, write what you learned about the book that we are about to begin to read and its author, Nicolas Carr.

Remember to type up your beginning of class writing from Monday and today, and post that writing as comments to their respective blog posts. Since Project Two is due before class on Monday, you might have to scroll down to find the correct place to post your comments.

Today, we are concluding our reading of John Medina’s Brain Rules by taking a look at the “Exploration” chapter that you read before today’s class. Besides simply summarizing today’s reading, I would like you to discuss why this chapter is so important to the work that you are doing on Project Two now, and the work that you will be doing in all of your classes at City Tech as you work your way towards a career. We will discuss this during the first part of class.

For today’s class, you read the Gender chapter from John Medina’s Brain Rules. This is one of the more challenging chapters to read in this book, because the reader has to carefully follow what Medina says about the similarities and differences observed between the brains of women and men. During the first ten minutes of class, write your summary of the chapter, and discuss the relationship between what Medina tells us and your own direct experience.

For today’s class, you read two chapters from John Medina’s Brain Rules: “Vision” and “Music.” Post your summary of these two chapters as a single comment to this blog post before Monday, November 2.

On Wednesday, we will meet outside the entrance to the library on the 4th floor of the Atrium. One of our expert librarians will introduce the library and its useful research resources to you.

During the orientation to the library, we will have some time set aside to use the research tools that the librarian demonstrates to you. Your task during this part of class will be to use the Academic Search Complete database accessible from http://library.citytech.cuny.edu to look at articles relating to your field of study and your future career. Find at least one article that you would like to return to and read in detail as part of your research. In your notebook, write down information that will help you find the article again: it’s title, an author’s name, the journal’s title, the issue number, the date, and the page numbers. If you have time, you can download the article and attach it to an email to yourself for safekeeping, or use the database’s built-in features to email a link or copy to your email address. Before our next meeting, write a 100 word summary of the article (or perhaps another that you find through further research in the database) in your own words followed by an MLA-formatted bibliographic entry using the guide available on the Purdue OWL website (https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/747/07/). Post this assignment as a comment to this blog post.

During the first ten minutes of class, write a summary of your reading from John Medina’s Brain Rules: “Sensory Integration.” Also, discuss how you think sensory integration relates to creating and reading multimodal compositions (combining words, sounds, moving images, graphics, body language, etc).

During lab, we will peer review the writing that you brought into class for Project Two. Your task, however, is to peer review with fellow students who you have not peer reviewed with before.

Remember: On Wednesday, we are meeting just outside the library in the Atrium on the 4th floor. Your reading assignment to prepare for our library tour and in-library assignment is to skim the sections linked from the Purdue OWL’s Conducting Research site (i.e., read that page and skim the pages linked from there beginning with “Research Overview” and ending with “Internet References.”

        We all have something that makes us the person we are today. It can unravel your personality or even bring out a person you never imagined yourself to be. My name is Dorothy Vera Sanchez and I’m a current student at New York City College of Technology. While in high school many of my friends were involved in sport teams, encouraging me to do something with my spare time during the school year. Therefore I ended up joining the volleyball team, which eventually became my hobby. Before, volleyball wasn’t something I played very often but it eventually became something I spent most of my time with, especially after school. It has taught me how to be competitive, disciplined, and work with others.

      Every since I was 10 years old, my father would take my brother and I every weekend to go play volleyball indoors. It is part of our Ecuadorian culture to be involved with such a sport like this one. The teams are set up with three players on each side of the court. There is a setter; a player who receives the second touch once the first hit was passed towards them. Also the setter sets the volleyball towards one of the outside hitters. And two outside hitters, one on the right and the other on the left side. In order to win the first set, the team has to reach fifteen points faster than their opponent team. The game also consists of a maximum of four sets, which is most likely completed by championship or by advance volleyball players. But when playing with some members of my family, gambling is usually involved, evoking a competitive atmosphere; everyone wants to win. Basically in order to play, the players must pay the referee first and when a team wins, the losing team’s money is given to the winning team. Typically in an indoor volleyball game you expect to play with a volleyball, but here, a soccer ball is used as a replacement. My dad played as one of the outside hitters and I would observe my dad playing as he tried to improve his hits. As I saw him play, I tried to figure out what spot would be right for me to play in. I would walk to the court when they were done playing and pictured myself in certain spots on the court. But during that time, I was only able to observe my uncles and dad play and I would just practice throwing the ball to them as they tried to improve their hits over the net.

        In the beginning of my sophomore year, things changed. The school year started and so did volleyball practice for my school’s team. I noticed how the coach observed me, paying special attention to how I would set the ball to my soon-to-be teammates. Little did I know I was going to be the team’s setter, leading into championships, and winning the division championships.

       My junior year of high school started and all my teammates knew this year involved facing tougher teams in order to keep up with the wins from our previous season. This meant winning all of our games and competing to stay at the top of our game. We had to win these games. Our opponent teams were also competitive and just as good as we were. There was this one game that involved playing a team that was just as good as we were. Before all this, I must say that I wasn’t much of a competitive person; I wouldn’t mind whether we won or lost. But ever since last season, losing a game wasn’t something we wanted to have in our agenda anymore. While we faced this team, our team was losing to a score of twenty-four to twenty-two and we didn’t know whether we were going to catch up and win. But we didn’t let that get in the way. The team got more competitive and every time I would set the ball to one of the outside hitters on my team, the opposite team would always dive or bump the ball. This game was a close game especially since it was also the second set. Some of our friends started yelling “bump! set! kill!” hearing those words made us more aggressive in every action we did. The middle hitter yelled out towards me saying “ten.” In volleyball, “ten” meant setting the ball as high as you could but near the middle of the net. That night we won our first home game against them.

    Becoming competitive wasn’t the only thing volleyball taught me, but it also taught me how to be disciplined. The first time I ever arrived late to practice, the coach didn’t even bother to yell at me or want an explanation on why I was late to practice. Instead, my coach would make me or any other player that came in late run at least ten laps around the track, then have us do our regular stretches, and complete at least double the amount of suicides. Suicides are when you have to run from one end of the court to the other. Aside from that, we also had to do the other exercises. Our water breaks were also reduced to half the time the other girls would get as a way of learning our lesson of not arriving late to practice. During practice our coach was training us on how to properly rotate around the court. But every time a girl would mess up on the rotation, the whole team had to begin doing five squat jumps. If it continued to happen again, the entire team would have to do another five more prior to the ones done previously. Once the team had to do around thirty squat jumps because either one girl or myself would mess up on the rotations. There were times where if we let the ball drop on the floor, our captain would make us do ten mountain climbs for every drop. She would also add another ten when we didn’t yell the words “got it” when one of us went for the ball. Also any time I wasn’t able to set the second touch of the volleyball, I had to yell out “help” in order for the girl that was near the ball to either bump the ball or set it as well. If I didn’t say those words, I would have to do five suicide runs. Every mistake we did at the beginning of the season wasn’t there after a while since most of us knew what would happen if we made an error in the court.

     Another thing that I was able to learn, aside from learning to become competitive and disciplined, was teamwork skills. This wasn’t an issue for me mainly because I wasn’t greedy or non cooperative. I usually kept to myself and I really wouldn’t talk. Before I got comfortable around them, I would get nervous when I talked to them, which really didn’t help out in the court. During the beginning of the season, the girls and I didn’t know each other. We were all strangers to one another and we all weren’t sure if we would have enough team chemistry to get along and be a good team. But we all had the same objective of enjoying our couple of games and winning as many games possible. Our coach was trying to teach us how to be a team and if one player messed up, we all messed up. We all struggled so much within the first week especially when one of the girls would mess up because we all would get in trouble together. This made it so much more difficult to become friends with one another due to the fact that we all as a team would get mad at the girl who messed up during practice or even at a game. After a week or so, we all started to help each other out. When a girl would forget her spot during the rotations, we would quietly tell her where to go so that none of us would get in trouble any more. Since then we all became a team with amazing chemistry.

    Volleyball took out the person I never thought could possibly be within me. With all of this experience, I have gained amazing friends and memories of the games to even the memories my teammates and I would share on our way home. Volleyball is more than a sport to me; it’s a summer lifestyle. Yet it brings out the real me while I’m playing the sport.

For today’s class, you read the “Memory” chapter from John Medina’s Brain Rules. During the first ten minutes of class, write a summary of the chapter and discuss your own memory (e.g., What is your earliest memory? What is your happiest memory? What things do you remember the easiest? What things are more challenging for you to remember?). Type and post your in-class writing as a comment to this blog post before class on Monday.