Professional Investigation

The programs that complement the New Media Studies Program at DePaul are Writing, Rhetoric, and Discourse (WRD); Art, Media, and Design; Communication; and Computing and Digital Media (CDM). Below is some information that I found useful regarding each discipline:

Department of Writing, Rhetoric, & Discourse

I'm really interested in the professional and technical writing aspect of this program, and I think that these courses look really exciting:

• WRD 520 Computers and Writing
• WRD 523 Editing (will be taught Spring 2009-2010)
• WRD 524 Document Design (will be taught Winter 2009-2010)
• WRD 525 Writing for the Web

Another thing that caught my eye was Instructor Antonio Ceraso's specialty, which is issues of intellectual property in the digital age.

Department of Art, Media, and Design

The Department of Art, Media, and Design has three concentrations: media arts, art and design, and fine art. There are some classes that I think that I'd really enjoy under the media arts sector, like ART 329 Digital Photography, ART 364 Computer Applications in Art, and ART 332 Special Topics in Photographic Practice. However, I'm not sure that I'll be able to fit these into my schedule since there are so many other courses that I'd rather take.

College of Communication

The College of Communicatin offers four M.A. programs: Organizational and Multicutural Communication, Journalism, Media Culture and Society, and Public Relations and Advertising. Of all the academic disciplines, I'd probably least likely take courses from this discipline because the courses don't look very stimulating. Perhaps this is because my undergraduate degree was in Communications, and these courses seem familiar.

One thing that I am happy to learn about this program is that it is one of the top three communication programs in Illinois.

College of Computing and Digital Media (CDM)

Before this assignment, I didn't know that CDM offers 17 different master's programs. The one that particularly interests me is Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), and I'm surprised that this degree can be fully completed online. Two other things that really impress me are the number of computer labs and the faculty's research and creative activity. A few of the topics that I think are really cool are artificial intelligence, animation, computer game development, documentary filmmaking, graphics, and human-computer interaction.

Some of the courses in this program that I'd like to take are:

• HCI 402 Foundations of Digital Design (was taught Fall 2009-2010)
• HCI 470 Digital Page Formatting I (will be taught Winter 2009-2010)
• HCI 440 Usability Engineering (will be taught Winter 2009-2010)
• and HCI 454 Interaction Design

This assignment is useful because I got a chance to see what all is out there. Although there are so many interesting courses that are being offered, I'm especially attracted to courses in the Writing, Rhetoric, and Discourse and the HCI Program. Aside from the five NMS core courses, I'd like to take Web Design I & II, and I'd like for the remaining five courses to be some combination of the WRD and HCI courses that I specified above. My immediate plan is to take NMS 503 Principles of Graphic Design this winter and WRD 523 Editing this spring.