WCore Creative Emphasis Courses

We live in a designed world. Our lived experience is the result of decisions made in the creative process and says as much about aesthetics as it does about effective design. This class engages students in discussions, written responses, hands-on studio workshops, and innovative problem-solving as a way to consider the aesthetics and design in our world. Using fundamental concepts from drawing and painting, sculpture and 3D construction, digital tools, and design, we will apply design-based thinking to solve problems, revise and evaluate existing solutions, and personally redefine the creative process. Work across several disciplines will allow us to see the interconnection and relationships between traditionally disparate fields of study. Simultaneously, this course will provide students the opportunity to expand and integrate their creative skills, gain experience with specialized technology, and develop a portfolio of interdisciplinary objects and ideas that demonstrates creative flexibility and a multifaceted understanding of complex issues. Alongside individual projects, we will identify and analyze real world problems, as a way to connect what we do in the classroom to our community. (WCore: WCFAH, CE)

More photographs are uploaded to Facebook every two minutes than were made during the first 60 years of the history of photography. With the shift to digital technology and the convenience it affords, electronic photography has replaced traditional, silver-based photography as our mainstream method of visual expression and communication. Traditional photography, however, continues to be practiced with a strong and passionate following. Most serious photographers consider it necessary to learn these skills to truly understand the medium, and many practice it for its immediacy and hands-on intimacy. This course will introduce skills, techniques, and materials of traditional, silver-based black and white photography. These skills include use of camera types, including view cameras and hand-held cameras, lenses, light metering techniques, lighting techniques, and refined development and traditional printing techniques. We will examine how different technologies have introduced different methods, and how these methods have shaped, and been shaped by, cultural aesthetics and priorities. We will discuss and examine artistic and photographic concerns, and deal with the advancement of personal visual and conceptual skills needed to produce affective images. Students in this course will experiment with a variety of materials, techniques, and philosophical approaches to traditional photography, and ultimately produce a body of work that exhibits their own personal investigations and creative expression. (WCore: WCFAH, CE)

Bring your ideas to life by building mobile apps that make a difference! This course is designed for beginners and teaches students practical coding skills through fun, real-world projects that show how easy and rewarding tech can be. (WCore: WCSAM, CE)

Have you ever slayed a TikTok challenge, followed a youtube tutorial to learn a new move or wondered what happened to Dubsmash? This course will look for answers while it explores the dance and social
media as a space of creative expression, technical innovation and cultural exchange. Students will examine how social media platforms shape the aesthetics, consumption and reception of dance, while engaging in hands-on creative projects to develop individual movement-based social media content. Through creative exercises, practical work, critical discussions and collaborative experiments, students will explore what it means to create, connect, move and communicate in a digitally mediated world. (WCore: CE)