[image of certificate and cords]
BDP:DA&M indirectly shaped my life path more than nearly any other experience at UT Austin. It served to lead me to many other such experiences, and was itself eye-opening. The Bridging Disciplines Program is what made me an interdisciplinarian, and thus made me into the professional version of what I have always been at heart. I couldn’t be more grateful for that.
Read below for details on my acceptance to, work in, and completion of the certificate.
I had briefly looked at the BDP program before this, but ruled most out as anything interesting or worthwhile. When it was brought up in class by a presenter how easy the application process was, I reexamined the issue and found that the DAM program was the perfect bridge between my start as an Electrical Engineer and my new life in Advertising (as it explores most often the topic of 3D animation).
So, I filled out the brief application online which asked for a planned set of courses from a sheet of available ones, an essay, and a brief addendum describing my GPA. I then attended a brief meeting with adviser Chinnock and a few other applicants. There, we did peer revisions of our essays and got feedback from our adviser on how to better our applications overall. She also described the process and program more fully.
My revised work can be seen here, with my favorite quotes below.
We now live in a time that was once dismissed as science fiction. Technology has progressed in leaps and bounds, and our consumption of art and media has changed with it. As technology now dominates both the entertainment industries and commercial media production, it takes a special blend of the arts and sciences to successfully navigate the new landscape. The Digital Arts & Media BDP provides incredible opportunities to explore new media platforms and create work that pushes the boundaries of traditional ones. As an Advertising major with an Electrical Engineering background, this seems like the perfect supplemental program for my education.
[…] When initially coined, the phrase “jack of all trades” was spoken without the second clause and in overwhelmingly positive tones. I feel as though that applies not only to this application but to all of my personal and professional goals.
[…] The DAM BDP offers something tantalizing that I need to be a part of. It offers a deeper understanding of content I need to know for my career, and it offers answers to burning questions about that content that I’ve always had. This program offers a wealth of possibilities not afforded by my or any other single major, and I would relish the chance to explore their full potential.
My initial chosen courses can be seen here:
I was, as you can see from the image heading this post, accepted into the program after these revisions were submitted.
Now that I am nearing the end of my BDP work, I returned to this page to find it surprisingly empty given all that I have done since last typing here. I may add in later everything I did for previous courses, but perhaps my most important work is what I’ve done in the past few weeks.
With only my Creative Project/Connecting Experience remaining at the end of the last semester, I wasn’t sure what I should do. My classes for this program had really been stepping stones to branch out across the rest of the university, rather than building up to anything in particular. After remembering the possibility of DA&M students to earn an Emphasis in Game Development, I applied to the 3D Game Development Capstone taught by Professor Toprac. Despite having less experience in most relevant fields compared to the rest of the seasoned students he took on, he accepted me after I built and provided a Seelio portfolio. At that point, my work had only just begun.
The class itself is immensely taxing, requiring hours past that of a full-time job each week. I’ll get to that later. Beyond that, I was required to do extra steps for Toprac as well as the BDP department. I had to apply for certification with an Integration Essay looking back on my years in the program. Read it here, or skim my favorite quotes:
In my four years at The University of Texas at Austin, I have really done it all. I began as an Electrical and Computer Engineering major, bringing the experience full circle by coding a video game for my BDP capstone. […] I have traveled from Mexico to Czechia and run reports on the various cultures and economies. I have learned new languages, met new peoples, and been in dozens of organizations from leading the National Residence Hall Honorary to writing for the Cactus Yearbook. I have worked in the Vertebrate Paleontology Lab in my free time, and taken courses in such disparate subjects as extraterrestrial life and oil painting. Most importantly, I would not change a thing.
[…] I hardly even consider myself an advertising major anymore. […] However, even if my career does take a straightforward path, I know that I will not be pigeonholed into my current track of account planning as many other graduates may be. Even in my final courses where we work as a mock ad agency to compete in NSAC, I have grown the ability to help out other departments (such as creative and account services) rather than just my own (research).
I also had to later submit a Reflection Essay on specifically my experience with the capstone course. I was also required to build a website relevant to our video game, present at the SDCT Student Showcase (formerly Digital Demo Day), and create a research poster for BDP Day during Research Week.