Abstract:

The New York City College of Technology, City University of New York, is offering a new Bachelor of Technology program in Emerging Media Technologies. The program is highly interdisciplinary, integrating 1) media design theory and practice, 2) computational media models and principles, and 3) engineering methodology and implementation. Emerging Media Technologies refer to the technologies in an experimental stage prior to industrial adaptation. Emerging Media concerns the process of specifying message protocols, device interoperability, and the transmission and display of information. In this new discipline students learn to develop skills such as rapid prototyping, integration, teamwork, software knowledge, and the skills for evaluating the long-term viability of media technologies in multiple application domains.

The New York City metropolitan area comprises an urban ecosystem of unique economic development opportunities dependent upon a knowledgeable, media-fluent workforce. The descriptions for new job opportunities call for expertise both with specialized problem solving and integrated cognitive skills. Demands for new talent require that students be prepared in specific disciplines, at the same time they have to be well-informed of interdisciplinary production models incorporating engineering, computing, and design creativity. In the new program students are guided to create new media tools and software through cooperative production processes. The goal is to cultivate creative thinking capable of anticipating future applications of media technologies.
The program objectives are 1) to achieve a highly integrated collaborative learning environment encompassing design, engineering, and computing; 2) to provide adaptive educational offerings proper to the dynamic nature of contemporary technological practices in context; and 3) to expose students to cutting edge technology and related practices in their concentration area. Students further their expertise and leadership by their ability to construct requirements in their own domain from the specifications given from other domains.

Students are asked to submit an entrance portfolio in at least one of the following areas: media, design, software programming, or hardware engineering, including circuits, computers, robots or similar mechanical or digital devices. Each student begins the first year with Creative Media Foundation courses to acquire comprehensive overviews and hands-on experiences. In the second year students choose concentration areas: Media Design, Media Computing, or Entertainment Engineering. In the third and fourth years students pursue concentrations then converge into collaborations through Interdisciplinary Team Projects.

This paper highlights the unique structure of the Interdisciplinary Foundations experience drawing upon courses in other programs. The Creative Media Foundation 1) helps students discover their strength and their orientation to select their future concentration area by exposing them to a gallery of possibilities, 2) increases their understanding of plasticity by providing them with hands-on experiences in designs and experiments across multiple modalities, 3) prepares students to favor cooperative and collaborative learning by providing an open laboratory learning environment, 4) facilitates their capacity to participate in interdisciplinary projects with proper communication skills with fluent media literacy.

Keywords:

innovation, technology, research projects, etc.