Curriculum

Students will spend four days a week in full-time internships (arranged by the program) and one day a week/occasional evenings in classes. The internships and classes are integrated, though, in a designed curriculum that does not distinguish between class, internship, lecture, and project. Classes will be built around an ongoing series of talks from Bay Area experts in innovation. These talks will occasionally be in the classroom, but often will be at the actual site of the expert, where students will get to understand the unique culture of that company.

Courses offered for Spring 2013:

IMS 390.C – Bay Area Digital Innovation (3 credit hours)
This course will examine the history, culture, and structure of the innovation culture in the Bay Area. While curated and run by AIMS faculty, the course will largely be lectures and site visits with local entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, innovators, and thought leaders.

IMS 340 – Interactive Media Studies Internship (3 credit hours)

We will arrange for a semester-long internship with a Bay Area company in the Digital Innovation space. Internships will be throughout the Silicon Valley as well as in San Francisco. The roster of participating companies will be posted shortly, but range from small start-ups to large corporations.

ENG/IMS 407, Interactive Business Communication (3 credit hours)

This new course will focus on the question, How are interactive technologies, social media, virtual workspaces, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google +, etc., changing business communication? Students will conduct research on this question, but will also produce business communication using interactive and digital technologies. Students will gain knowledge and experience with digital correspondence; personal marketing; social media communications (blogging, tweeting, facebooking); virtual meetings and conferences; online presentations; data visualization and visual reporting; writing in virtual teams and virtual work spaces; digital networking; proposal writing; and international, global, and cross-cultural communication. Students will maintain a blog throughout the course and develop their own business communication eportfolio using interactive media.

IMS 440, Interactive Media Studies Practicum (4 credit hours)

Examines the tools and methodologies involved in creating and managing the production of new media. Students will study different development models in a real-world setting and work with their own startup or with a client in business or industry to consultatively produce an interactive solution. This course particularly focuses on two aspects of the client project: (1) the management of new media development, and (2) the processes that best develop the synergy of an interdisciplinary team working toward a shared goal and the tools of development. It will also emphasize project planning and management.

IMS 477 – Independent Study (3 credit hours)
Independent study at the SF DI Center is based on the creation of an innovation project, either collaboratively with the student’s internship partner or independently, by the student. This project may be a proposal for a start-up, the creation of a digital product, or something else agreed upon between the faculty and the student.

All hours of the program count for the IMS major, co-major, and minor. Most of the 16 credit hours earned can count for the Graphic Design major, Entrepreneurship minor, and potentially towards other programs, depending on advisor approval, including Marketing, Computer Science, and others. See an AIMS academic advisor for more details.

There are a variety of options for graduate students that can be tailored to meet specific graduate program requirements. Please contact us to discuss options.