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Original Article: Art School Review: SIAT – Specializing In All Technologies
By Karen L who graduated in 2008 with a Major in Interaction Design & Minor in Communications

“I chose the School of Interactive Arts & Technology (SIAT) at Simon Fraser University because of the flexibility of the programs offered, and also because it was a full-fledged university that offered bachelor degrees. The program itself interested me because it synthesizes technology with visual design.

Not many schools existed at the time that had a program like this, and also offered a degree. During high school, my interests and expertise were in drawing, art, and web design. Therefore, right after graduation, it was natural that I enrolled in SIAT – not to mention that the Summit Entrance Scholarship helped enforce my decision.

Transferring Majors

At first I was in the New Media Environments (NME) concentration because I was interested in the media production side of the program. The types of courses I took in my first 2 years covered 3D animation, art theory/history, sound creation/production, video-editing, digital photography, and drawing. I took a particular course in my second year that made me realize what I had really wanted to do and could get passionate about.

It was Design in Digital Environments taught by one of my favorite professors at the school, Russell Taylor. After that second year course, I changed my stream from NME to Interaction Design (ID) because I realized then that THIS is what I really wanted to do and learn – and nothing else posed a great enough challenge. I found NME to be too artsy for me, and ID was more about theory, research, testing and prototyping which I found more engaging.

Courses

Because I changed stream concentrations mid-way, I was a little behind in completing the core courses required for ID. However, because my first and second year background was in NME, I had a wider knowledge of production and technical skills that were not native to ID. The best parts of the program were the classes that had professors and teaching assistants who actually gave critical feedback to the students about their projects that were constructive, knowledgeable, relevant and truly useful.

However, there are also many courses which were disappointing and felt like a waste of time … or where the instructors did not really do much teaching but more like supervising. Don’t expect the instructors to teach you how to use each software because most of the time you will learn it through read-me tutorials than from an actual person.

The Students At SIAT

Due to the nature of the projects, almost every class requires you to be working in a team of 3 to 6 people. Gaining experience working in teams is one of the strengths of SIAT. You really get to know what it feels like to work with others and learn firsthand about team dynamics, problem-solving, staying on track, and time-management.It’s too bad that over the last few years, increasing class sizes and access to specific equipment is degrading that experience because there are far too many people in the program. It is unfortunate for students who ACTUALLY want to learn because they will be surrounded with a bigger bunch who don’t feel the same way or don’t have similar ambitions. Many students get into the first-year cohort program and then switch faculties the following year, so the first few semesters are a bit painful.

Administrative Changes

Costs for the program are increasing yearly; its becoming about $500/course of 3-credits and you need 120 credits to complete the undergraduate degree. This is not including student fees, materials or textbooks required for each course which would cost an extra couple hundred every semester. Also, not all courses are offered all year round, many of them are only once a year during a specific semester — this has been improved a lot over the years since they now have SIAT courses available in the summer as well.

SIAT is still relatively new (about 6 years old) and it’s CONSTANTLY undergoing administrative changes in course availability, faculty, and graduation requirements. Some courses may change yearly even if the name is the same. New degrees like joint-majors with Communications or Business are also being introduced. I don’t know how successful or helpful these will be, but there is a common distrust among veteran SIAT students against Business students that one should be prepared for.

Even the faculty has changed recently since SIAT used to be part of the Faculty of Applied Sciences, among Computing Science, Kinesiology, Engineering and Communications. Now it is moving to a new faculty: School of Communication Arts & Technology — consisting of Communications, Fine Arts, and SIAT. Even the stream concentrations have recently changed, Interaction Design is now called “Design”, and New Media Environments is called “Media”, and the third stream, which very few people know anything about, is “Informatics”.

Italia Design

I ended my last year at SFU by being part of the ItaliaDesign Field School in my fourth undergraduate year. This program is unique to SIAT and particularly to students in the Interaction Design stream. It is a full year field school program that starts in January and ends in December consisting of four courses. Twelve students are hand-picked by the field school director, Russell Taylor, by competitive entry. Students are picked based on a variety of things, obvious requirements being their academic maturity, academic/technical/interpersonal skills, performance in past classes, etc.

This program is ridiculously intense in terms of coursework and dedication — ask anyone that has taken any of Russell’s courses, and they will say the same. I was part of the fifth annual group of ItaliaDesign and although no one else was in fourth year at the time, I had no problem working with the students who were one year older/younger— proving that as long as you have a team of mature, dedicated, intelligent, respectful students, the team will be successful whether or not you’ve worked with them before. It is amazing to work in a team like that.

We spent one semester at school preparing our research methodologies to be taken in-field. In the summer we were in Italy actively carrying out our research. The following fall semester, we synthesized and compiled our research findings and published them on to our website. Clearly, this particular field school is not for everyone and there are many people who apply that do not get in but they can keep trying because competitiveness and chances change from year to year.

Employment

I had worked for a year after my third year in the program as a web designer, which is only a small fraction of the kind of work someone in Interaction Design can do as a job. The job was not difficult to find at all because web designers who had a background in some programming, aesthetics, interface design, and communication design were less common compared to programmers, who were abundant.

Many SFU graduates of the program end up with jobs that could have little or a lot to do with their field of study. It is by no means guaranteed to get you a job because the school does not teach you those things that other technical schools teach — at least not specialized enough that your work will be better than theirs — however another strength of the school is its ability to allow the merging of disciplines that other technical/speciality schools will not have. At the same time, because SIAT covers so much ground, the types of jobs students can get will vary, and students hoping to obtain jobs post-graduation will need to seek out their education throughout their undergraduate years because passive learning will get them nowhere.

The Verdict

I would recommend this program if you are REALLY interested in the subject because you will have to endure a lot to get what you want out of it. Do the other students a favor and only go into SIAT if you actually have a genuine interest in it. To know more of what it’s about, talk to current and past students, or visit the SFU Surrey Open House. Do not expect to get spoon-fed, otherwise you will feel like you went through the program being the “Jack of all trades but the master of none”.

I’d have to say half the things I learned were from teachers, and the other half were learned over the course of the program having to personally acquire my own skills and knowledge and use them during projects. The school did less teaching than I had originally thought. Do not expect to get spoon-fed, otherwise you will feel like you went through the program being the “Jack of all trades but the master of none”. This is true, because SIAT is not a school that specializes. It is very general in a lot of ways, and the specialization really depends on the individual and their ambitions to hone their skills on their own time.

Post-Graduation

My future plans are to work in a bigger company where I could potentially move up to a Creative Director or Art Director type of job. I’m also looking for good masters programs abroad in Interaction Design where I can further my study.

I am glad I chose Interaction Design at SIAT because I learned things that I wanted to learn; it fit me well and was worth my time. If you want to see my portfolio, visit www.sfu.ca/~kmlo.”

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Tags: interaction design, sfu, student, university