ACQUIRING COMPETENCIES
Rationale
This part of the thesis will list of the competencies acquired during the MFA program at Full Sail University. This will mention and explain what these competencies are and what took to acquire them. It will also how and why they will be important to my professional career.
Content
Competencies
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Ethics and Professionalism
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Time Management
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Leadership
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Collaboration
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Research
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Developing ideas
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Client communication
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Syntax
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Language Proficiency
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Sketching
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InDesign
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Layouts and Visual hierarchy
Ethics and Professionalism
After being introduced to the Global Professionalism Score (GPS), it was extremely important for my own personal goals to always maintain the higher score possible. These scores reflect how you conduct yourself professionally in different environments like campus, education, and community. Coming from a school of communications we referred to the code of ethics often, that is why ethics was also another important concept. In this scenario, it was extremely important to always maintain professionalism not by only submitting the material on time, but also to ensure that the written material and the research conducted met the minimum requirements, avoid plagiarism and citing every source using APA format. This competency will be helpful in my career to demonstrate my work ethic every day while delivering collaterals that maintain certain standards including written and verbal communications and interpersonal relations.
Time Management
Time management was a crucial competency. I have always been good managing my time. Full Sail’s accelerated program added an additional level of pressure when it comes to manage your time and submitting the material on time. Being a full-time student with a full-time job limited the time to work on the assignments every week. Production schedule and its accuracy was a way to ensure that the material was completed on time with the expected outcome. Additional time needed to be allotted to watch tutorials and apply feedbacks to ensure the final project was as exemplary as possible. This competency will be extremely important on my career specially because not everybody can manage time successfully. Employers and peers know they can rely on me when it comes to finish a project on time even in times where the pressure and anxiety can affect the outcome.
Leadership
Throughout this program I have hosted all the group discussions. The reason why I feel comfortable doing this is because I have leaderships skills that were appropriate in every class I took within this program. Leadership allows me to be empathetic towards my peers. Most of my peers are parents and by me taking the lead not only gives me peace of mind but also provides them a relief while assuming the responsibility of hosting these meeting gave them something less to worry about. I don’t need to be the boss and control everything around me.
Being the leader of collaborative projects makes me feel safe knowing the level of commitment and professionalism I put towards everything I do. In every group project I have been part of, and I am in charge, things are completed on time and in the best way possible. I consider myself a leader because I keep in mind I am working with other humans, and I create a safe space for everybody to excel at what they do best. That is the reason why I always offer myself to take the lead because having high standards when working can lead to successful results. In my professional career my leaderships skills could propel my possibilities to work and collaborate with big group of people always keeping in mind that is not what you do, is who you are. That is why people feel comfortable following my lead.
Collaboration
It doesn’t matter how good of a leader I am if I am not willing to take feedback and constructive criticism to better myself and my work. I recognize I am not the best and I don’t know everything. The main reason why I started this program in the first place was to be a better artist/designer. It takes certain level of professionalism and maturity to be able to take feedback and apply them to your work accordingly. It was necessary for me to come into this program with an amateur mentality. Although we all came with certain knowledge and a degree, this was a safe space to fail, learn and ask questions. In my professional career being able to collaborate well with other will separate me from other designers. It is important to stay humble and do not have airs of grandiosity. It is good to be confident but not arrogant and employers and peers can sense when feedbacks are not being taken in consideration. Nobody wants to have a person that thinks they know everything, but someone willing to accept critiques and learn from their mistakes.
Research
I came to this program with a solid knowledge of how to do research. I had an idea of code of ethics and how to avoid plagiarism. This program helped me with being self-sufficient but also to know what information to look for, and how to measure the effectiveness of my designs. Before it was more of looking for sources to read and instruct myself. This program helped understand the worth of the information gathered to prove the effectiveness of my decisions. Therefore, by conducting strong research and having a strong set of communicational skills is an opportunity as professional to acquire expertise in client’s industries and markets.
Developing Ideas
This competency is focus on developing ideas. Artists and creative people often have an excess of ideas. One of the reasons why I decided to continue my education was the need of being able to bring my ideas from my mind to the paper and eventually present that idea to stakeholders and clients. Having a plethora of ideas is not an inconvenient in the eyes of others artist and even other people consider that a real talent. The problem started when with having those good ideas was not enough and I struggled to present them to my team or stake holders. After advancing on this program, I am thankful enough that now I have acquired the competency to be able to develop those ideas so they can come to real life. Now when people look at my work, they just don’t only wonder how I came up with that idea, but I am also able to explain my idea and sell a possible solution to a client. The way I communicate an idea has gotten better thanks to the four elements of design and the four principles of ideation by David Airey. This concept will help me in my professional career to develop an idea and to pitch your solution and convince the client that the solution presented is the best for their problem.
Client Communication
It was important for me to understand that regardless of the many ideas I had, it was necessary to be able to communicate those ideas. They want to see how we think as designers. It is on that process that I can differentiate myself from others. This competency used the concept of the three c of professional design communication, collaboration, and critical thinking. In the beginning this was crucial to have a better understanding of this profession. This will help me in my professional career because now I have the ability of using knowledge, facts, and data to solve problems effectively by thinking strategically, assess problems and find creative solutions. This competency will allow me to connect with other people, places or ideas involving listening, speaking, observing, empathizing and persuade in form of writing, presentation and managerial.
Language Proficiency
The previous competency is really connected with this one. Although I am fluent in English, my brain thinks in Spanish. Being bilingual made me afraid of trying to pursue a higher education and it was something that stopped me for many years. I always thought that my English was not good enough and that hold me back for a while. All the written material and the research was an opportunity to train my brain to think in English and eventually this made me be more fluent and comfortable when speaking the language. Being bilingual will give me another point of differentiation and will make me more qualified than other designers. It will allow me to communicate with bigger audiences and will multiply the possibilities of working with more clients. Coming from a school of communications, speaking in front larger audiences is not a problem. I came here being good at that, but this degree helped me with my self-confidence when speaking and writing in any of those two languages at a mastery level.
Syntax
When communicating with either peers or a client, the grammar is a very important element of communication. It makes the content stand out. The feedbacks provided by the instructors helped me to always be mindful of the syntax when communicating in English. After years of practice and with this degree I can say I have acquired a competency in terms of verbal and written communication. The most challenging part of being bilingual is that the order of the words and the way that sentences are structure in Spanish are in a different order than English. This has always caused confusion and is something I must pay attention all the time. I must make sure that the content has flow, and the sentences make sense. Now I am more fluent with English and although I keep receiving feedback regarding my syntax and typos on my written documents, this degree has allowed me to process my thoughts differently. I also do not doubt myself anymore about how capable I am to communicate in English nor let anybody to measure how fluent I am. Completing this degree successfully has helped to believe in myself even more and to be confident enough to know that I did accomplish this despite of English being my second language. This will help me in the future because it will enhance my bilingual skills while having a more seamless communication in a professional setting.
Sketching
I came to this program with a very minimum sketching proficiency. This program allowed me to develop ideas in a more effective way. During the early stage of this program, it was necessary to determine the potential skills needed in the future. I identified sketching as one of them. In the past I used to sketch my ideas in a very novice way. During the first months of the program where sketching was not required, I took the time to watch tutorial, practice and try to refine the previous art knowledge I had. During my undergraduate I took a class of fundamentals of art which was the beginning of my interest in drawing. Although drawing is not a strength of mine, practicing my sketching technique allowed me to draw more refined sketches. This competency combined with the developing ideas competency will help me in my career to be able to bring my ideas from my mind to paper more effectively and professional and present it to my team, stakeholders, and clients to communicate the message and get idea across with a neat, clean, and organized presentation.
InDesign
This program gave me the opportunities and the tools to continue developing my competencies and to get become more proficient in the usage of the Adobe creative suite. During my undergraduate I learned how to use photoshop only since I started as a photographer. Coming into this program, the design challenges and the multiple projects allowed me to become more proficient in the usage of Adobe InDesign. Designing brand style guide and brand playbook were two of the many projects that contributed to mastering this skill. This knowledge will allow me to present my design in a more structured and professional way. This will be an advantage when including InDesign as part of the skillset when looking for a job.
Layouts and Visual Hierarchy
Learning how to use InDesign to present a well-designed project was another competency acquired during this program. I came into this program confident of my writing skills. Using headings when presenting a written documents is necessary, but the feedbacks provided by instructors regarding the proper usage of typographic and visual hierarchy leverage the presentation of my content. It was very important to use different levels of headings to better organize the content and guide the reader. Using this principle and the different ways to guide the reader’s eye to create contrast and emphasize the most important concepts. Learning how to use InDesign wasn’t enough if this principle wasn’t applied appropriately to leverage the designs presented. This will be helpful in the future. When the content is presented neat, organized, well-structured and with a professional look, will make my work to standout while maintaining certain level of professionalism.
