DMA Career Day 2017
An annual convening of creative professionals at UCLA Design Media Arts
On a sunny Friday afternoon in late January several dozen Design Media Arts (DMA) students crowded outside the Broad Arts Center, reviewing their resumes and checking over their portfolios one final time before heading into interviews with industry professionals in hopes of landing a summer internship or job offer. After years of exploring media in the studio, studying history and theory in lectures, and developing personal voices and technical skills in their classes, these juniors and seniors were now presented with the opportunity to connect with potential future employers and collaborators.
Welcome to DMA Career Day.
“There's an interesting issue teaching design and media art within a major research institution,” explained DMA Professor and Vice Chair Peter Lunenfeld. “We are not a service provision school. We are research-driven. We are here to have our students explore different potentialities, different media, and the possibilities of being a creative person in the 21st century. On the other hand, we also want our students to be able to take this education and get jobs after graduation.”
Launched by former chair and DMA Professor Willem Henri Lucas to address this issue, DMA Career Day has been facilitating students’ professional development for nearly a decade.
According to Professor Lunenfeld, this program offers an “organized and focused way to help our students, not just to find employment and internships, but also to talk to people who are in industry already so that they have a sense of what the transition from student to creative professional is really like.”
And Career Day is not just a resource for students. Creative professionals from a variety of industries—design communications, education, virtual and augmented reality, commercial advertising, robotics, and more—use this program as a valuable recruitment resource. “It’s hard to find talent, to be honest, and it’s hard to find young talent, so having an opportunity like this to meet so many people in one, quick shot is very valuable,” says a representative from Hypothesis, a Los Angeles-based consulting and creative agency. Casey Gaul, of Digital Dragon, an organization that offers technology classes and programming for youth, adds that DMA students are especially sought after: “Our DMA hires have been fantastic and have a notably wide range of skills.”
Another benefit for the industry professionals who participate in Career Day is that they can see students’ work in context. This year, the event, which takes place at the UCLA Broad Art Center, was timed to coincide with the department’s annual undergraduate exhibition. “The reviewers get to come in and see not just a digital portfolio, but the way that the students engage with the materiality of what they're doing,” says Lunenfeld. “In the gallery, they see large-scale posters at actual size, sculptural installations made out of glowing neon, graphic design beautifully printed and bound, and projections at large scale; and they are able to interact with games and interfaces in real time.”
The event’s location also gives students, many of whom are interviewing professionally for the first time, home court advantage, which boosts their confidence and eases conversation. Laura Berman (DMA BA Candidate), who interviewed with Hypothesis and DMA alumni-led studio, Content is Relative, expressed how helpful it is “when [interviewers] come to a place I'm familiar with and are in my setting. I'm not going to their huge office in Hollywood where I can't find parking, and I'm freaking out.” These experiences on campus ultimately help students feel more comfortable when they do have to go out and interview at the huge Hollywood offices. “Even if I don't get a job or internship out of today,” says Greta Lorenz (DMA BA Candidate) who interviewed with Headspace, a popular meditation app; Tool of North America, a production company; and enso, a branding agency—“the fact that I was able to have interview experience, the fact that I was able to go on three interviews in one day in which I had to sell myself and my abilities in 20 minutes was a terrifying and rewarding experience.”
Tyler Yin (DMA BA Candidate) says Career Day helped him gain a better understanding of where he might want to work upon graduation. Although he’s looked on his own, it has been difficult to find companies that are compatible with his own goals. “It was a big surprise to find so many studios that matched my interests, especially in the integrated field. It's not just motion graphics, or just commercial design, or just branding and graphic design…Many of these companies are doing things that relate to the DMA philosophy, and that's such a relief.”
It’s not surprising that the companies represented at Career Day mesh so well with the goals and philosophies of Design Media Arts students—many are led by or employ alumni of the department. “One of the reasons come to a specific department at a specific school is because they think that there's a community outside that recognizes what happens there and it builds on that,” says Professor Lunenfeld. “I think that we have that. All over Los Angeles, all over California, and all over the US, we have DMA alumni who are doing incredible, interesting work in companies from Amazon, to Facebook, to Google, to Deutsch LA, to Tool and beyond. Our alumni then look to give back to their alma mater, and their companies are reaching out as well.”
One such alumnus, Sam Klitsner ’16 (DMA BA), was doing just that. This year, he attended Career Day as a representative for Oblong, a technology development company based in Los Angeles, where he holds a position that he got through connections he made at Career Day when he was a student. He thinks DMA’s community is one of the greatest strengths of the department. “Network seems like such an impersonal way to describe it, but it does feel like a community in which the professors, alumni, even fellow students—everyone is excited to see what you go on to do and to help you along the way.”
And that’s true. “One aspect of the department’s mission,” Professor Lunenfeld says, “is to help students find jobs in their fields, and contribute to the culture and the economy of the city, the state, and the nation. Career Day is part of taking this this mission seriously.”
Selected Career Day Participants:
NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Read more about current students.
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This story is a part of the Spring 2017 UCLA Arts Newsletter. Subscribe to our mailing list to receive this quarterly newsletter directly to your inbox!