If you’re one of those professionals who believes that a career should be more than just a paycheck, then a college of applied arts may be for you. You can parlay your creative talents into a respectable salary in art niches such as graphic design, performance art and gallery curator.Arts and Design School: The Benefits of Distance LearningBecause art and design programs are inherently visual, they sync well with the distance learning format. You’ll appreciate the variety of standard benefits that online study has to offer: classes from home, convenient scheduling, reduced expenses, and the ability to maintain your personal and professional obligations, just to name a few. As an arts student, you’ll love the way the online degree format develops the technical skills that could give you the edge in a competitive hiring market.College of Applied Arts: Program FAQsCommitting to a particular field of study for four or five years deserves thoughtful consideration. Here are just a few frequently asked questions that potential art and design school students have:
Will I have to attend any campus sessions? This depends entirely on the program of study. Most online programs are just that–distance learning sessions that you can complete entirely from home. Some programs may require periodic meetings on campus to turn in portfolios or deliver recitals
How long before I must declare a major? Many programs allow you to complete prerequisite classes for the first year or two before requiring you to declare. Due to their complexity, some art and design programs require immediate commitment
How will the content be delivered? Online programs combine electronic textbooks, class blog and chat technologies and video conferencing in a web-based framework
Will professional certifications help me to get hired? Professional certifications are particularly helpful in the technical design fields, such as graphic design and multi-media arts
From Classroom to Career: What to ExpectThe U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics paints an encouraging picture of the employment opportunities for graduates of arts and design school. Here are just some of the professions that you’ll qualify for with the job outlook and salary potential for each.
Artists and Related Workers. Employment of artists and related workers is projected to increase by 16 percent from 2006 through 2016–that’s faster than the national average for all occupations. May 2008 salary projections vary widely, from art directors at $76,980 per year to multi-media artists at $56,330 per year
Arts, Entertainment, and Recreation. The career fields poised to see the largest growth in hiring from 2006 to 2016 include management, business, and financial occupations at 26.4 percent and professional and related occupations at 24.2 percent
Other Arts-based Career Options . Graduates of college and applied arts programs may also choose careers as commercial and industrial designers, fashion designers, floral designers, and graphic and interior designers
The bottom line is that you can earn a living by doing what you love by graduating from a college of applied arts. Also, attending an arts and design school online makes the transition from classroom to career convenient and affordable.
The College of Applied Arts – Arts and Design School Training Turns Talent Into Career
Art Therapy School! Is an Institute of Excellence
Art therapy is a form of psychotherapy that uses art media as its primary made of communication. It is a growing field, which began by treating children and adults who were emotionally scarred or physically disabled. Art therapy school helps students to develop strong foundational skills that help them interpret art in a way that is more personal and therapeutic to the client. An art therapy school assists the students in honing their artistic talents as well as their ability to interpret and analyze art and the process of creativity. A quality art therapy education can help to learn important fundamental methods, and how to encourage and foster the creative process to the clients. The goal of an art therapy school is to provide you with the tools and the knowledge to help improve the quality of life of your patients or clients via the creative process and expression. Proper art therapy training from reputed art therapy school can help professionals develop new strategies for over coming various disabilities in students or clients.Current professionals can gain important knowledge on how to implement various creative arts activities that can assist their current curriculums. The art therapists work is sometimes challenging and calls for skill and sensitivity; it follows that those who wish to pursue a career in art therapy should be mature, flexible people. The training course, which combines theoretical and experiential work, is a masters degree to be completed over two years full time or three years part time. Applicants must have a first degree in art, although other graduates are sometimes considered, and some proper experience of working in an area of health education or social care. Therefore the relationship between the therapist and the client is of central importance, but art therapy differs from other psychological therapies in that it is a three way process between the client, the therapist and the image or art effect. Thus it offers the opportunity for expression and communication and can be particularly helpful to people who find it hard to express their thoughts and feeling verbally.Art therapy can help children with emotional problems, with learning disabilities, with their cognitive abilities. Art therapy can also did a child in achieving better self-awareness, relief from stress or anxiety, learning disorders, autism and other traumatic experiences.How Is an Art Therapy Effective on Adolescent?Teenagers or adolescents are sensitive about their image, particularly with their peers, and often put themselves at emotional risk rather than confess that they need help from a “shrink.” Understanding them are a challenge at best, and the adolescent who is ill or suffering from psychological stress is an even greater conundrum. The physician treats the physical problem but often puzzles over where to find therapeutic treatment for this age group. Furthermore, their view of the “talking” psychotherapies has been shaped by the movies, and they often think that these therapies are only for serious “mental” cases. In contrast, they come to art therapy without such preconceived ideas, and this form of therapy has proved effective with adolescents.In art therapy, the client is asked to make a collage, make some marks on paper, or shape a small piece of clay to illustrate the difficulties that have brought them to therapy. The art therapist does not interpret the art piece, and the clients are free to share as much of the meaning of their art as they choose. Adolescents, in particular, are attracted to making symbols and graphic depictions; therefore, they are more attracted to using art as language than to verbal questioning. When the negative behavior is illustrated, it is then external to the individual, and the behavior thus becomes the problem, not the individual.Imagery taps into a person’s earliest way of knowing and reacting to the world; therefore, it is not foreign to the experience of learning. Art as a language of therapy, combined with verbal dialogue, uses all of our capacities to find a more successful resolution to our difficulties.This externalization of an internal stress or by the creation of “no artistic art” allows both the therapist and the client to better address the problem. The therapist gains greater knowledge of the problem because the client uses metaphor and narrative to explain the product. The “art” allows clients to distance themselves from their own dilemma and, in that manner, work with the therapist toward alternative solutions to a problem.If you are a social worker, teacher, psychologist, or anyone with a desire to learn and understand a new discipline and form of communication, then an art therapy education can help you well.
Clean Technology: Tomorrow’s Technology
The popularity of clean technology is rapidly growing: people are realizing that by being eco-friendly and applying these principles to their companies, they are able to deliver quality products and services, while promoting the protection of the planet, its natural resources and the importance behind these efforts. As technology continues to evolve and adapt to our needs, many agree that green technology is tomorrow’s technology.Clean technology is defined as the different products, services and procedures that aim at providing top performance at affordable costs, while conserving the natural environment and promoting the productive and balanced use of the planet’s natural resources.The concept of this technology was first presented by the Cleantech Group (founded in San Francisco, California, USA in 2002), a company that provides support to corporations, investors and smaller companies in the form of market research and assessment on how to incorporate this technology to their products and services, and how to market them. That makes this technology a very appealing option to most companies and their target audiences.Popular ways of using this technology in our daily lives is through recycling (processing used materials to create new ones), renewable energy (energy obtained from natural resources, such as sunlight, wind, water and geothermal heat), sustainable or green transport (walking, cycling, green vehicles, carpooling, public transportation), green or sustainable chemistry (designing products that contain little or no hazardous substances to the planet), using energy-saving light bulbs and greywater (wastewater generated from activities such as laundry, dishwashing or bathing. It differs from sewage or blackwater, as it doesn’t contain human waste).As there is a growing interest in clean technology and its benefits, there has also been a growing demand for careers or courses focused on the topic, such as Environmental Engineering or Environmental Systems (a form of civil engineering, where professionals are able to create structures or the right landscape that can perfectly blend in or protect the environment), Environmental chemistry, sustainable chemistry or environmental chemical engineering (courses help the student understand the positive and negative effects chemicals can have in the environment), and Environmental technology courses (that focus on producing electrical or electro technology-oriented graduates, that are able to develop tools and equipment aimed at monitoring, calculating, shaping and controlling the impact on the environment or discovering new technologies that can be used to create or recycle energy.The need to minimize pollution (as it affects not only the environment, but our health) and use more clean technology to prevent and reduce it, this initiative has led country leaders to come together and create strict obligations to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases in industrialized countries.The need for further research and documentation has resulted in the creation of non-profit organizations worldwide. The fast and effective communication through the internet, and proper ecological education in schools, and the development of careers focused on creating sustainable development and clean technology, has helped people all over the world understand the problem and educate themselves, and the new generations to favor this technology, and make the lifestyle changes necessary to make it tomorrow’s technology.