Digital Multimedia Design

Digital Multimedia Design involves learning to design, use, and apply digital platforms, formats, and devices in a range of online interdisciplinary settings. You will develop your digital literacy by coding and creating multiple digital forms using a variety of computer languages; expand your visual literacy in developing multimedia narratives; and enhance your design literacy in exploring ideas in creative problem-solving situations. Digital media generally refers to the storage and transmission of information in increasingly varied multimedia digital formats and devices, and within changing modes of communication. Design is a means by which we respond to change in a purposeful way by focusing on issues, problems, and opportunities and developing plans for taking innovative and tactical actions. Our goal is to prepare you to be a new generation 21st-century learner, and the curriculum embodies its purpose because the entire degree is delivered online through Penn State's World Campus.

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You are inspired by learning processes that challenge you to explore knowledge beyond given boundaries, build alternative options for bringing different media together, or collaborate with others to find new ways of communicating ideas. When the changing face of digital media and the open-ended nature of digital design are brought together in settings involving information science and technology, communications, and visual arts, the outcome is beyond our imagination.

The Bachelor of Design (B.Des.) in Digital Multimedia Design (DMD) is an online undergraduate degree delivered in collaboration with the Colleges of Arts & Architecture, Communications, Information Sciences and Technology, and World Campus (WD). The major helps prepare individuals to be leaders in digital media technologies and multimedia industries. This interdisciplinary degree develops students' design thinking through courses in art and design, critical thinking through courses that promote active, critical and ethical use of communications media and technologies, and systems thinking through courses in information technology and human interaction.

The DMD will help individuals build capacities to be creative leaders and change agents who engage with critical issues through interconnected projects in design, technology, and communications across a wide spectrum of industries. This discipline integration creates the conditions for working in the collaborative, adaptive environments that characterize the digital media professions. Combining methods, tools, and approaches from each discipline provides the basis for developing design literacy, visual literacy and digital literacy when responding to problems and issues of local and global importance.

• Apply practical and technological competencies by integrating skills in design thinking, systems thinking, and critical thinking to address problems, implement ideas, produce work, and assess outcomes;
• Develop the capabilities necessary to use digital technologies in multimedia projects through exploration, expression, and communication that engage a multiplicity of ideas, forms, actions, and settings;
• Demonstrate communication skills by creating and presenting ideas, concepts and designs in written, verbal and visual forms;
• Acquire career oriented knowledge and strategic thinking skills that can be applied through project organization and management in a variety of social contexts and professional settings;
• Embody cultural diversity and ethical awareness through experiences that engage and encompass a multiplicity of social situations and complex communities;
• Demonstrate competencies and capabilities to enable the use of skills to create, execute, and evaluate communication strategies in multimedia contexts making them a valuable asset for businesses, corporations, government, and nonprofit organizations.

If you are a first year student applying to Penn State:

Click Apply to start your Penn State application. Before starting, you can also review the Applying Online Worksheet for more details and helpful hints about the application.

Your application work can be saved at each step of the process by clicking the Save and Continue button at the bottom of the page. This feature will allow you to move back and forth within the application or log off and return to complete your application at a later time.

After completing your Academic History, you will need to provide your Self-Reported Academic Record (SRAR). As you begin the SRAR process, a new window will open allowing you to complete your SRAR. SRAR will focus on your high school coursework. It is important that this step is a complete and accurate representation of your school record. Therefore, have a copy of your secondary school records available as you complete your SRAR. You will need to enter every class and every grade earned for the last three years, as well as those classes in progress.

After completing your SRAR, you will be directed back to the Penn State application in order to complete the Program of Study portion of the application. Here, you will indicate your desired starting semester, your intended program of study, and your starting and ending campus. For further details on how to complete this portion based on your applicant type, please see the steps to apply for first-year students.

After completing this section of the application, you will provide some additional information, an activities resume, and a personal statement. You will be able to paste in this information from other sources, but note that the formatting may not always paste in as intended.

If you are a transfer student applying to Penn State:

All international transfer students will be required to submit official high school transcripts in order to complete the application. International transfer students will not complete the Self-Reported Academic Record (SRAR) for either their high school or college coursework.

If you have accepted your offer of admission to Penn State:

If you completed SRAR and are accepted to Penn State, please provide the following for grade verification:

• Official transcript from years 9, 10, 11, and 12. If the transcript is issued in a language other than English, it must be accompanied by a separate line-by-line English translation.
• Official copy of the Tawjihi, accompanied by a separate line-by-line English translation.

The Digital Multimedia Design degree expands your access to a range of learning communities – those typically out of reach for students enrolled in one program within one discipline. Your take courses across three colleges–Arts and Architecture, Communications, Information Sciences and Technology – and it happens entirely online. We are preparing a new generation of 21st-century learners and leaders in art and design media, visual communication, and digital literacy. You are introduced to different domains of knowledge from across disciplines and you integrate these ways of knowing into a personal portfolio of multimedia projects that demonstrate your creative capabilities in multiple digital forms and contexts.

The fully integrated scope of this program will equip you with skills considered central to many 21st-century jobs, such as creative problem-solving capabilities, capacity to exercise leadership in team building around collaborative projects because of your fluency in digital languages, visual communication, and design proficiency. You will learn to apply contemporary design methods to engage real-world issues in conceptually robust, technically varied, and expressively rich projects. These problem-based and project management skills are invaluable for many new career paths emerging within the creative industries and the creative economy.

Opportunities for Graduate Studies

Due to the multidisciplinary scale of this program, the range of digital visual communication forms, art and design practices, and creative computer applications in media and communications, filmmaking, gaming, and animation that you encounter is extensive. You will have opportunities to pursue broad-based experiences, and to follow specialized pathways of interest. You design your own program pathways around a cluster of digital courses as your skill levels grow and your professional aspirations emerge. The pathways are meant as a starting point for your academic career and will help guide a conversation with a DIGMD program adviser.

MORE INFORMATION ABOUT OPPORTUNITIES FOR GRADUATE STUDIES

Professional Resources

• College Art Association
• National Art Education Association
• National Council of Art Administrators
• Pennsylvania Art Education Association