Information Handout For Incoming Masters Students

Information for Incoming Masters Students, Fall 2009 Orientation Meetings: Orientation for all entering Georgia Tech graduate students will be held at 9:00 AM on Tuesday, August 11 in the Georgia Tech Coliseum. Specific times and locations for further orientation events sponsored by the Office of Graduate Admissions will be announced soon at http://www.gradadmiss.gatech.edu/orientation/. You are strongly encouraged to attend. In addition, there will be an orientation meeting for Masters students in the Digital Media and HCI/LCC programs at 3:00 p.m. on Wednesday, August 12th in Room 002 of the Skiles Classroom Building, followed by a pizza reception at 5:00 p.m. in the Wesley New Media Center. During the following week, you will also want to attend the secondyear DM and HCI-LCC Masters students’ PowerPoint presentations on their summer internships at 5:00 p.m. on Wednesday, August 19th in Skiles 002. You will also have an opportunity to meet faculty and students from Digital Media and the College of Computing at the annual GVU ice-cream social on the afternoon of Thursday, August 20; we will confirm the exact time and location for this event soon. International students, students with assistantships, and students in the HCI/LCC program will also have separate meetings during the same week (exact days, times, and locations will be announced later). Software Boot Camp: Please anticipate a software boot camp for Adobe Flex, Flash, and Air during the week of August 10-14. Details will soon follow. Registration: Registration runs from August 12 - 21. During the registration period, you should plan to meet with the Director of Graduate Studies or with your advisor (if possible) to discuss which courses you will be taking. For a listing of courses offered in Fall 2009, please visit https://oscar.gatech.edu/ and click on “Schedule of Classes.” Indicate “Fall 2009” as your term selection, and from the list of Subjects, choose “Lit, Communication and Culture.” Digital Media courses are listed under LCC 6000 and LCC 8000. In addition, DM students often take courses in the College of Computing, the School of Public Policy, the School of Management, the College of Architecture, and elsewhere. Courses for graduate students are numbered 6000 and above, but a limited number of undergraduate courses (numbered 3000 and 4000) can be taken with prior approval of the Director of Graduate Studies.

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There are two required courses for all first semester DM Masters students: LCC 6310: The Computer as an Expressive Medium LCC 6311: Visual Culture and Design HCI/LCC students should take at least one of these courses, as well. In addition, Digital Media students are urged to take CS 6750: Human Computer Interaction, offered in the College of Computing. All DM students must enroll full-time (12 credits). Students with assistantships should enroll for 9 credits, plus LCC 8998 (3 credits). The Georgia Tech Catalog can be found online at http://www.catalog.gatech.edu/. Books Worth Reading: We know that some of you are eager to begin your studies, so here are some suggestions, including recent books by Georgia Tech faculty: Auslander, Philip. Liveness: Performance in a Mediatized Culture. New York: Routledge, 1999. Bogost, Ian. Unit Operations: An Approach to Videogame Criticism. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2006. Bogost, Ian, and Nick Montfort. Racing the Beam: The Atari Video Computer System. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2009. Bolter, Jay, and Diane Gromala. Windows and Mirrors: Interaction Design, Digital Art, and the Myth of Transparency. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2005. Bolter, Jay, and Richard Grusin. Remediation: Understanding New Media. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1999. * Cartwright, Lisa and Maria Sturken. Practices of Looking: An Introduction to Visual Culture. New York: Oxford UP, 2001. (used in LCC 6311) Dourish, Paul. Where the Action Is: The Foundations of Embodied Interaction. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2001. * Fry, Ben and Casey Reas. Processing: A Programming Handbook for Visual Designers and Artists. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2007. (useful for LCC 6310) Galloway, Alexander R. and Eugene Thacker. The Exploit: A Theory of Networks. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 2007. * Greenberg, Ira. Processing: Creative Coding and Computational Art. New York: Springer-Verlag, 2007. (useful for LCC 6310) McCullough, Malcolm. Abstracting Craft: The Practiced Digital Hand. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1998. Murray, Janet H. Hamlet on the Holodeck: The Future of Narrative in Cyberspace. New York: Free Press, 1997. Nitsche, Michael. Video Game Spaces: Image, Play, and Structure in 3D Worlds.

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Cambridge: MIT Press, 2009. * Waldrop-Fruin, Noah, and Nick Montfort, eds. The New Media Reader. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2003 (the reader used in all 1st year core courses). Software Worth Learning: To prepare for the work of the first semester: Java, Processing, Flash (with Action Script), Photoshop, HTML with style sheets (Dreamweaver but know the code). Also helpful: Illustrator, InDesign, Director, DVD Studio Pro. Please note that Processing can be downloaded at: http://www.processing.org/. During the week of orientation, we will be having an intensive software boot camp focusing especially on Flex and Air, two Adobe products that build on Flash. For second semester: SQL, PHP, XML, Final Cut Pro, AfterEffects, 3D applications. Useful for electives or project work: Flash with video, Maxx, Jitter, 3D Studio Max, Maya, Unreal Engine. We do not expect all of you to be experts in all of these tools, but current and former students would agree that it would be a wise use of the summer to become as proficient as you can at the core technologies. If you are having trouble choosing which of these to work on, go for Processing, which is central to LCC 6310, or Flash, which is the prototyping environment of choice for many projects. Useful Equipment: All students in the DM program will have 2Gb of storage space in the program’s webstorage server; in most cases, your partition will be adequate to store files on which you are currently working. However, it will not be enough to maintain an archive of previous projects or to store very large graphics, sound, and video files. For this reason, you will need to purchase removable storage media or establish your own networked archive. We suggest that you burn backup cds of your work as appropriate and purchase USB flash memory for quick and easy file sharing. The DM computer lab is equipped with shared Macintosh and PC workstations. There are additional facilities available in the nearby Georgia Tech Library, as well as specialized labs for animation, music, etc. in associated units. The DM labs are equipped with the software listed above. The DM program has a few digital video cameras for use on specific course projects, and the library has more available for loan. If you intend to do intensive video work throughout the program, you may want to purchase your own digital video camera, but there is no need to do so before 2nd semester. You may want to wait to buy equipment until you come to Georgia Tech, since prices go down, configurations change, the campus store offers discounts on hardware and

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software, and it will be easier to judge your needs when you are here. Most students bring laptops or netbooks to class. International Students: This year, as in the past, we are pleased to welcome several international students to the program. Georgia Tech's Office of International Studies (Room 211, Savant Bldg., 404894-7475) offers a special orientation, which we encourage all entering foreign students to attend. For information, please visit http://www.oie.gatech.edu/. For information about student-based organizations, please visit http://cyberbuzz.gatech.edu/main/index.php. The student organizations can be helpful with early arrival housing and other practical matters. International students with assistantships will not be allowed to start employment until they have received a Social Security Number. You must be in the United States for 10 business days before you can apply for a Social Security Number. International students for whom English is a second language are strongly encouraged to bring their English up to the level of advanced facility in oral and written comprehension and production before undertaking graduate study. Unlike other technical programs, Georgia Tech’s DM Program requires subtle verbal comprehension and participation in discussion. If your English is not excellent, or if your TOEFL scores do not represent your performance at an American university, you should consider postponing your graduate study until you are better prepared. DM students who are judged by the Director of Graduate Studies to be insufficiently proficient in English will be required to take auxiliary courses in English as a Second Language. Since these courses are often oversubscribed and do not count as graduate study in Digital Media, they may slow down progress towards the Masters degree. There may also be additional charges for such courses. Students who are not sufficiently proficient in English may also experience difficulties in finding graduate assistantships and summer internships in the US. Parking: All students who expect to park a car or motorcycle on campus at Georgia Tech must apply for a campus parking permit. If you will have a car on campus for the Fall 2009 semester, you should apply for a parking permit at http://www.parking.gatech.edu/parking/1_on_campus_parking/index.php by June 30th. Select “Click here for alternate login,” and log onto the site with your Georgia Tech I.D. number (this number begins with 901 or 902) and date of birth. Follow the links to secure your parking permit. You can find campus parking maps, information about cost for each lot, parking regulations, and more at the parking home page: http://www.parking.gatech.edu.

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More Questions? With academic questions, please contact Prof. Janet Murray at [email protected]. With administrative questions, please contact Matthew McIntyre at [email protected] or 404-385-7551.

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