ecampus blog

Continuing our coverage of summer/end of the year-related posts, this week we’ll be covering a valuable school resource available during the summer. As you probably have guessed by now, thanks to the title, we’re talking about Lynda.com.

Even if this happens to be your first quarter, there’s a good chance you’ve heard about Lynda.com from one of your professors. Depending on your major, you might have heard about it from all of them. The quick description you’ll usually hear is that Lynda.com offers tutorials for various software programs like Photoshop, Flash, etc.

While that is definitely a part of it, there’s a lot more to it. Keeping some of these things in mind during the break, and using them, can do nothing but help you in the long run.

We’ve mentioned briefly the software tutorials available on Lynda.com, so for now we’ll leave them be. It’s safe to assume they’re the most familiar aspects of the website to students. Instead, we’ll start with a Lynda resource that is a little more obscure: documentaries.

It’s true, Lynda.com has documentaries available for instant streaming. And this isn’t just one or two of them, we’re talking about 52 documentaries ranging from 15 minutes to 1 hour in length. A large majority of these are closed captioned and they all focus on the art field in some way.

Documentaries on Lynda generally fall into two categories: those that focus on a particular artist or company, and those that focus on a broader subject of the art world. The great thing about both kinds of documentaries, is that they focus on people and subjects that have value to your education.

Take for example the documentary on Italian artist and designer Simone Legno. Creator of the popular tokidoki clothing brand and designs, his documentary focuses on character design in Adobe Illustrator. Not only do you get a glimpse into the artistic process of an established, successful artist, you also get an insight into how that artist uses the same software you are more than likely using in your classes.

This one-two punch of information gives you the advantage of knowing what goes in the mind of a successful artist, while also picking his brain, figuratively of course, for the best techniques to use when developing your own character designs. And all of this in a quick and easily accessible video format. If your summer happens to be particularly busy, this is arguably the most efficient and least time-consuming resource available at Lynda. Try having one on while you work, inspiration may strike you depending on what you watch.

But, let’s say you’re looking to have a more hands-on summer. Maybe you’re looking to work on something new, something different from an art-related program. Well, Lynda is still a valuable source, believe it or not. See, not only does Lynda offer design tutorials, it also offers plenty of business-related ones. Thinking of brushing up on your branding/self-marketing skills? Maybe you’d like to know more about how to work social media to your advantage? Or would you prefer to just go over some Microsoft Word functions to create a better resume? All of these options, and more, are available through Lynda’s “Business” subsection.

Don’t let the word “business” throw you off. There isn’t any stuffy or dry language here. It’s just a collection of tutorials made with a design focus in mind, so the language will be familiar and accessible. And, if you could spend your summer doing even something small to increase your business sense, is that really so bad? Your bank account will thank you in due time.

Of course, it wouldn’t be Lynda without the opportunity to learn more about design software like Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, etc. Here, finally, we come to some familiar territory. But don’t rest on your laurels, this section of Lynda is just as important to keep in mind during your summer as the last two sections. Whether you’re searching through a broad subject like “Photography” or looking for help in programs b a specific company like Adobe, Lynda.com remains one of the best resources. Plus, since you’re a student, it’s all free. What better way to learn while saving money from any summer job/regular job/freelancing you might have?

In all likelihood, you’ll have a busy summer. However, part of the beauty of Lynda.com is that the resources available aren’t time consuming. The documentaries are relaxed due to their nature as something you watch and the tutorials are separated into small sections that you can go back to at your will. It’s easy to fit time in your schedule for them, and we recommend it, because knowledge can only help your career.

The time has come, the ecampus blog said, to speak of many things. Specifically, things relating to graduation. Yes, while it feels like the quarter just barely started, in reality we’re recently past midterms and its time to consider what to do for this very important ceremony.

First, congratulations on graduating! While there’s no doubt it’s been hard work getting to this stage, you should feel proud that you’ve stuck to it and are now almost at the end. In order to make things a little easier for you, we’ve compiled some of the most important information you need to know for graduation.

Good news is, there’s going to be a small party. As we mentioned in an earlier post, SCAD eLearning will host a graduation celebration on Friday June 1, from 4 to 6 p.m. EST. The party will be held at Pulaski Square, just outside of the eLearning offices.

You’ll be able to relax after a hard day spent at graduation rehearsal, as well as meet and greet faculty, staff and other eLearning students. It’ll be a good opportunity for some last minute networking, for those business-oriented among you.

Need more of a reason to stop by the party? Well, it’s also the place to go in order to pick up your tickets to the graduation ceremony. If you’ve received approval from your graduation auditor (which, at this point, it should be a given) then you can stop by and pick up four tickets for the 9 a.m. Presidential Conferment of Degrees and six tickets for the Presentation of Degree ceremony.

The former ceremony will include every graduating student, so expect large crowds and help your guests plan accordingly. The presentation of degrees will be split into two groups. One group will go at 1 p.m., the other at 4 p.m.  While this means there will be less of a crowd, you should still advise your guests to arrive at an early time.

But of course, that’s not all. Right after the eLearning graduation celebration, you can take a short walk down to Forsyth Park, where the annual New Alumni Concert will be held. Starting at 7 p.m., the concert will feature Grace Potter and the Nocturnals as well as JJ Grey and Mofro. We’re not very hip to the new jive these days, but a quick search shows that you won’t want to miss it.

Some of these announcements may not be new, but it’s worth refreshing them every now and then. You’ve worked hard for this day, why not make sure you know everything you have to know in order to make it as fun and stress-free as possible?

For more information on graduation, visit the SCAD Graduation blog at http://blog.scad.edu/graduation/

By Carlos Serrano

I’m going to break the fourth wall for this post, because it’s so avant-garde. Okay everyone, let’s “rap” as the kids say these days about social media. At this point, it’d be safe to assume that fair amounts of you are using some type of social media platform, whether professionally, personally or both.

By now I’m sure the more experienced students have a very clear idea of how to use social media to market themselves ad their work. If you’re not experienced, there’s a good chance you’re still doing it, you just may not recognize it.

For example, do you ever post your work on a blog or on Facebook? You may think you’re only letting your family and friends look at what you’re doing in your classes, but you’re also getting your name out there.

Maybe one of your friends ends up meeting someone who needs certain talents. Your friend, thinking back to the work you posted, suggests you. Bam, possible job opportunity.

I’m not going to say that it’s always that easy or that you should put all your eggs in one social media basket, but it’s a powerful tool that you should know how to use. For this post, I’ll go over the four biggest social media platforms that you’ve likely heard of: Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and Pinterest. I’ll look at their strengths and weaknesses and give an introduction to using them effectively.

Facebook: Arguably the most well known and used of the four websites I’ll take about, Facebook has become synonymous with the term “social media.” From fan pages to fully animated 3-D games, Facebook is still a hub for the majority of people and is a good way to begin making your mark in social media.

There are a couple of ways you can use Facebook to promote yourself. The obvious one, which I mentioned briefly, is to just post your artwork to your regular profile and share it with people you already know. This isn’t a bad idea, but you could take it a step further. Facebook allows you to make pages for businesses.

“But Carlos! I’m not a multimillion dollar business!” you say.

Well, good news, you don’t have to be. If you’re a freelancer or have a small studio, you can still create a page and use it to advertise your business. You can even use it as your homepage if you’d like. The important thing to remember is that you shouldn’t open a regular Facebook account in the name of your business. You’ll be shut down very quickly, and that’s just not fun. The Facebook Police might get you.

What you have to remember about Facebook, and really that applies to pretty much all the websites featured in this post, is that you have to be careful with the images you update. There’s quite a scare among artists that uploading pictures to Facebook is risky business, as far as copyright is concerned. To that all I can say is to be vigilant, and careful. Read the Terms of Service (I know, I know, we all love to skip it, but we must.).

Maybe search for your favorite artist, studio or company and see if they have a page. Check out what they’re doing and take a page out of their Facebook. Pun very much intended.

Twitter: Compared to Facebook, Twitter is a much less daunting task for those of you who don’t want to go through the trouble of setting up a page. Starting to tweet is easy, all you need to do is to open an account, play around with settings like your profile picture, profile background, etc. and you’ll be ready to go.

For those unfamiliar with Twitter, think of it was a Facebook status update restricted to 140 characters. It’s true that a lot of people look down on it for it’s apparent irreverence and focus on inane subjects like “What I had for lunch was…” However, it’s still a very powerful promotional tool, if you know what to do.

Obviously, try not to go with tweets about what you had for lunch. It can be funny from time to time, but you have to be confident in what you’re saying and its value. Your Twitter account is there to act as your voice on the Internet, remember that. It’s important to give any potential employers or clients a feel for your professionalism.

Don’t think this means you have to be boring or stuffy or anything. You can make witty or weird tweets as much as you want, if it fits your voice and your brand. The trick is to compose your tweets in a professional manner, especially if the Twitter account your using is for your business/art.

The downside to Twitter is how easy it is to fall into the trap of writing boring tweets. Don’t be afraid to go a day or two without updating it if you don’t feel like you have anything to say. Forcing thoughts to come out will result in a strained tweet and a blow to your brand.

You must also keep in mind that most of the time, having just a Twitter won’t be enough. If you have a Facebook page, you have your work as well as your status updates, and it keeps everything well-rounded. On Twitter, even though you can post pictures, you don’t have that structure. You’ll have to have an existing website or portfolio that you link people to.

Above all, be confident, follow people related to your industry and participate in the overall conversation.

Tumblr: Ah Tumblr, crazy, crazy Tumblr. Recently, Tumblr has become the new big thing for people looking to share their art and thoughts in a fast-paced, relaxed environment. It’s actually a really popular social media platform for artists, because of one thing in particular: reblogging. With just a click of a button, people can reblog, or repost, your Tumblr posts to their own page. From there, people that follow them can do the same, and so on and so forth.

Make a popular enough post, and it can be reblogged and liked thousands of times over. But before you go rushing off to Tumblr and start posting all your artwork, take note. You probably already do this, but make sure your art has either your signature or a watermark of some sort. While reblogging does show who was the original poster, it gets less and less noticeable the more people reblog a post.

Still, Tumblr can be a very fun platform to use. While you should still keep in mind that you’re representing your brand to potential customers, the atmosphere is generally relaxed and welcoming, with a focus on fun. If you’re looking into setting up a sketch blog or anything that’s not too serious, consider Tumblr.

Pinterest: The new darling of the social media world, Pinterest is an interesting concept. Built around the idea of sharing pictures, Pinterest takes its core design from the idea of pinning things, obviously.

After making an account, you’re able to create boards to hold the things you pin. You can then browse the website, search for something in particular and pin the picture you find to one of your boards.

However, I would advise you to be cautious with Pinterest, perhaps more so than with the other websites I’ve talked about. It’s very easy for someone to pin your work to their boards without giving you any credit. While Pinterest has instituted new policies to try and curb that practice, there’s no guarantee that it won’t happen.

Pinterest is still a new website, and it’s going through a transition stage as more and more people join. My advice would be to get situated on other sites before taking the plunge.

To be fair, there’s a lot of other ways to build an online presence, from personal websites to blogs and everything in between. However, these four sites are an integral part of many people’s online experience, and by using them to their full potential, you have the opportunity to reach a wide audience. So, get out there and socialize.

Now, we don’t want to alarm you, but it’s the fourth week of spring quarter. There’s a very good chance you might be working on some sort of paper. Whether it’s an extensive research paper or not, chances are you’re going to need to do some outside studying to do the best you can. Enter the library.

Not literally. Of course, your local public library is worth a visit every now and then, just to keep it going. But what we’re talking about is the SCAD library and its many resources for students. In fact, if there were a word for how many resources are available to you as a student, it’d be “resourcetastic.” Unfortunately, there’s no such word, so we’ll all have to make do with the phrase “lots and lots of resources.”

We’ve talked a little bit before about some specific databases SCAD libraries offer to students. Specifically, we looked at the big three: JSTOR, LexisNexis Academic and ARTstor. If those names aren’t familiar to you, or you don’t know how to navigate to them, feel free to check out the relevant post at this link.

But the library is so much more than just the databases. It’s people too, real people you can talk to and get help from at virtually any time. Well, maybe not at 11:59 p.m. EST just before the paper is due, but that’s exactly why they’re there at every other time.

And how do you get in contact with a real person? Simple, all you have to do is visit the main SCAD library page and look for Ask A Librarian in the menu bar. You can choose from a variety of different options including IM Chat, email, phone and in-person (if you’re into that sort of thing).

Note that reference librarians aren’t there to help you with your paper’s format/grammar. They’re there to help find sources that work for you. You’re free to come to them with either a general topic or a specific item in mind. Thanks to some strange and mysterious force we can only assume is magic, they’ll be able to find the source that suits your need.

But maybe you already have subject in mind, and maybe even a book, but you just can’t make it to the library? Then prepare to be amazed, because you may just be able to have that book on your doorstep. It’s called Ship-to-Home, and for the eLearning student, it’s one of the most valuable resources SCAD offers.

It goes like this: certain SCAD materials can be shipped or copied and sent to eLearners who are not near any SCAD campus. The key here is to request everything in a timely manner, because the library can’t ship overnight or rush. So yes, while it may be too late for those pesky midterm essays, you can still take advantage of this for finals.

To request Ship-to-Home materials, find the necessary information and forms under Library Services -> eLearning located on the SCAD library page.

The last major resource we’ll go over in this post is the SCAD Digital Image Database. Otherwise known as the art history student’s dream come true. As the name implies, the DID is a large, searchable online database that holds images of works of art available for all SCAD students. And it’s not just your standard visual art. Everything from performing arts and video is represented.

Every artwork you find on the DID comes with the necessary information to help cite it in a paper. With over 100,000 images and growing, there’s more than a good chance that what you’re finding will be on there. And isn’t it better to have all the right information as soon as you find the image instead of wading through Google Image search or taking a chance with Wikipedia?

To access the DID from the main library page, you should go to Library Services -> Visual Resources Center -> SCAD Digital Image Database.

The problem with writing about the SCAD libraries is that there really are too many things to write about. You could spend hours just navigating all the different databases at your disposal. That’s why communication is key.

Take advantage of the Ask a Librarian feature, or keep track of new library developments through the SCAD Libraries new Facebook page. You, your paper, and your professor, will be glad you did.

It’s that time of year again. No, not spring cleaning (although if you find yourself picking up pencil shavings from your bed before going to bed, by all means clean). It’s time to talk about SCAD eLearning’s 7^th annual Spring Social.

The eLearning Spring Social is a chance for eLearning students to get together with staff and faculty and touch base on a face-to-face basis. There are events sponsored by SCAD as well as opportunities to branch out and explore the beautiful city of Savannah. You won’t be left hanging dry.

This year’s Spring Social will take place on the weekend of April 27.  On that first day, we’ll take a gallery hop across three of SCAD’s finest galleries: Alexander Hall, Pinnacle Gallery, and Gutstein Gallery. A list of exhibitions currently showing at these galleries, as well as other SCAD galleries, can be found here.

In addition to the gallery hop, the new SCAD Museum of Art is available for your enjoyment. Admission is free for all SCAD students. Considering it features some of the best work from SCAD’s permanent collection, as well as installation pieces from new artists, we think it’s more than a great opportunity.

From artwork that hangs on walls, to artwork that decorates the ground. The day after the gallery hop, SCAD eLearning will have a tent at the 31^st annual Sidewalk Arts Festival. See prospective and current students, as well as alumni, take over the sidewalks of Savannah’s historic Forsyth Park with bright, colorful chalk drawings. As you enjoy the sights, stop by the eLearning tent for some fun, including a cupcake walk and special guests.

If you show up at the tent and participate in the cupcake walk you a have a good chance at winning a delicious cupcake. But the prizes don’t end there. Each person who wins draws the name of an eLearning student out of a hat. That student receives a special gift from either Ex Libris, the university bookstore, or ShopSCAD, the university’s art store. This way, even if you can’t make it to the tent, you still have a chance at winning. If you want to be eligible for the prize, just email ecampus@scad.edu using your SCAD email address.

Of course, we won’t have just cupcakes, although we’re sure not many people would complain if we did. We’ll also have special guest speakers who will join us through special filmed segments. There will be a TV available under the SCAD eLearning tent for those at the Sidewalk Arts Festival, as well as an online live stream for other students. It promises to be a great time for every student involved.

While not part of the Spring Social, one other very important event is coming up soon: graduation. With it comes SCAD eLearning’s traditional graduation celebration. Of the 143 graduating eLearning students, 96 have signed up to come to Savannah for commencement. We’d like to invite you, as well as anyone else who decides to come, to the party. It’ll be Friday June 1, from 4 to 6 p.m. EST. The party will be held at Pulaski Square, just outside of the eLearning offices and around the corner from the Savannah Civic Center, where graduation practice will take place.

Our advice is make a day out of it. With graduation practice so close by, it’ll be easy to come down for the party. Afterward, head down to Forsyth Park, where the annual senior concert will be held. Make friends, have fun, and enjoy nice day of relaxation before the big day.

We hope to see you at the Spring Social and/or the graduation celebration. We strive to make these events as fun as possible, and to make them great places to meet your fellow classmates as well as professors. So stop by and have a good time.

Hello everyone! All of us here at the eLearning offices hope you had a good winter break, and that you’re settling into a new quarter (and a brand new Blackboard design) smoothly.

Well, winter quarter is finally here, and just like the last installment of Student Aid Scramble said, it’ll soon be time to consider financial aid for the next academic year. We’ve already taken a look at the scholarship opportunities SCAD provides, so it’s only natural that we now look outside of SCAD.

Paradoxically, the first taste of outside scholarship opportunities comes from SCAD itself. The financial aid section at SCAD’s website includes a sub-section that lists a number of outside scholarships. If you find yourself intimidated by the prospect of setting out into the wild Internet, then this page serves as a good stepping-stone. You can access it by clicking here.

Of course, the list is not exhaustive by any means, and not all of the scholarships listed apply to every student. Like it or not, you may find yourself having to search for scholarships on your own. Staring at the Google search bar, trying to come up with a good term to search for can be daunting, but even in the untamed Internet there are easier ways to do things.

There are hundreds of websites that compile searchable lists of available scholarships. The most extensive and up-to-date is Fastweb. Of course, the most important for any student on a budget is the price: free. All that’s required is a simple online sign-up form and then you’re on your way to finding scholarships.

Like with anything on the Internet, there are some things to keep in mind. While use of the site is completely free, it does throw up ads while you’re navigating between pages. Be sure to read carefully before agreeing to anything you’re not sure is a scholarship. You don’t want your email inbox flooded with spam.

On the positive side, Fastweb gives you the option of completing a profile that automatically narrows down scholarships to those that match it. It’s an easy way to navigate a website that has so much information to go through otherwise.

There are, of course, other websites that collect links to scholarships, but there are so many, and only a limited number of scholarships, that you may as well make your life easier and focus on one.

There is one last way of searching for scholarships, and it’s probably the first thing you might do. A simple search engine search might be an easy way to get started, but much like when searching for material for research, it can lead to some iffy places. Feel free to use it as a starting point, but unless you have a specific scholarship in mind and just forgot the web address for it, stick with a website like Fastweb.

So far we’ve looked into how to find scholarships provided by SCAD and those provided by places outside of SCAD. These are by no means the only kind of financial aid available. However, they are some of the best forms of aid if only because you don’t need to pay them back. In the case of SCAD scholarships, they’re easier to apply for and, for outside scholarships, they can be quite a hefty sum.

It’s our hope that these articles have helped shed light on resources you might not have known about. Paying for college really can be a messy experience, to say the least, but if you take advantage of these opportunities you can continue studying what you love.

The end of fall quarter is just around the corner. It may not feel like it but before you know it, winter quarter will be halfway through and you’ll have to give serious thought to next year’s tuition and fees. Arguably, tuition and fees are the messiest parts of the college process, but any pain they cause can be mitigated by a dosage of scholarships and financial aid.

It’s never too early to think about ways to save money, especially large amounts of money. That’s the best kind of money to save. With that in mind, we’ll be highlighting different ways students can alleviate some of the pressure of tuition and fees.

This week’s topic: SCAD scholarships and the students who love them.

A lucky number of you reading this post right now qualified for either the Academic Honors or Artistic Honors Scholarship that SCAD gives out to incoming students. As the names suggest, these scholarships are given out to students who show a strong academic background and exceptional portfolio work, respectively. A few of you perhaps received both. You must obviously be a new kind of “super student” in which case please remember the help we’ve given you when you take over the world.

But maybe you weren’t awarded an Honors scholarship, or you’d like more aid to cut down on money borrowed from loans. Luckily for you, as a current student you can take advantage of scholarships offered by or through SCAD.

First thing’s first: According to Patricia Young, Director of Student Financial Advising, “eLearning students are eligible for the same scholarships offered to continuing students at SCAD.” What this means for you is that you have access to a fair number of scholarships that are already grouped for you and easily broken down by major. The obvious downside is that competition for these scholarships will be high. But have confidence in your work.

Second thing’s second: There are two ways to find these scholarships for continuing students. The easiest way is to click the link at the end of this sentence to go directly to the scholarship section of student financial services. There you’ll find every scholarship in alphabetical order, along with a description and the requirements you need to meet in order to qualify for the scholarship.

The second way of finding these scholarships is to log on to MySCAD, click on the Student Workspace tab and find the Scholarships for Current Students link located on the Student Toolkit channel. The advantage to this method is that once you’re on the page that lists the scholarships you can apply. (Note: Scholarships for continuing students don’t begin to accept applications until around April. Mark that on your calendars.)

While there’s certainly a vast number of outside scholarships to search for, it’s always less daunting to start somewhere familiar. SCAD scholarships have simple applications (they usually don’t require more than your information and a reference), come from a familiar place and don’t require you to spend hours searching for them. We’ll be taking a look at other ways to receive aid, but it’s always good to start with the easiest process and work your way up.

Outside scholarships or SCAD scholarships may sometimes affect the amount a student is eligible for in federal loans.

So you’re working on a project for class, and you need to do research. Luckily, SCAD’s library website offers links to some of the most thorough online databases. This post will go through some of the most popular databases available.

To find the following databases you’ll have to navigate to SCAD’s library homepage. To do so you can either log on to MySCAD and click the Library tab, or go directly to the library website. Both options will lead to the same page, so this step is more of a matter of convenience and ease.

Once you’re on the library’s homepage, you’ll see a row of drop-down menus. The left-most option, titled “Library Services” has a link called “eLearning.” Clicking that link will take you to a page detailing all the different services offered through SCAD’s library system. For now, focus on the section titled “Online Information Sources.” Click on the hyperlinked “Databases” and it will take you to this page. There you can search for databases based on subject, title, and source type (video, image, journal etc.).

If you’re confused by the amount of databases available, here’s a couple that have proven to be reliable and trustworthy.

JSTOR: Arguably the most used journal database, JSTOR features articles from scholarly journals spanning a broad area of subjects. From Finance to Paleontology, there’s something for everyone here. JSTOR’s homepage is simple to use. You can either browse journals by subject, or you can input a specific search term. The results will include all journals that use the term you searched.

Like all databases featured in this post, JSTOR has an advanced search option. It allows you to narrow down your search by language, item type (article, review etc.) and subject. This is probably the better option for those of you that have a clear idea of what you’re looking for.

A word of warning: JSTOR does not, unfortunately, have the most recent journal volumes online. Generally, volumes from two to five years ago are not available.

LexisNexis Academic: Besides boasting a name that would make Lex Luthor proud, LexisNexis is also the go-to database for newspaper articles, legal news and documents and company financial information. In contrast to JSTOR, LexisNexis’s homepage is slightly more cluttered. The upside is that search options have already been divided, meaning you can search for something specific as soon as you enter the site. The amount of searchable material is also very large, including most major newspaper publications (from the 1980s to today) and information from 43 million companies.

ARTstor: Of course, there’s no way to ignore a database for images. This is SCAD after all. ARTstor contains over one million images encompassing nearly the entirety of art history. It’s a pretty broad area to search without a specific term in mind. Much like JSTOR, ARTstor features a simple search option on its homepage and an option to browse artwork by broad categories like area and classification. Additonally, the database offers an advanced search option that allows you to search artworks by geographical place of origin, time period and more specific classification (painting, film sculpture, etc.). There’s no need to worry about using the actual images as sources in your paper. As long as it’s for educational purposes, you’ll be allowed to print or download images from the site.

This is just a small sample of the databases available to you. Though they’re the most popular, they’re by no means the only ones. In order to make your project the best it can be, you’ll have to decide which database bets fits with what you’re going for.

Let’s be honest, one of the major reasons people go to college to get a degree is to qualify for good jobs. Eventually that depends on you putting yourself out there to find the job you want. While there’s no replacement for the tried and true method of going out to different social and professional events and networking, sometimes that’s either not enough, or not an option.

This is where the Internet comes in. There are, of course, almost impossibly large amounts of job search sites available online. Today, this post will focus on those that are specialized for creative careers. It will feature three sites that stand out from the rest. Let’s begin:

1) Krop: Krop’s homepage is refreshingly simple. Jobs are listed as they appear, meaning the newest postings will be the first ones you see. Additionally, you can search for jobs by location and keyword. There’s no option for searching by industry, but the keyword search has proven to be good on its own.

Like most job search websites, to take full advantage of Krop you have to sign up and create a profile, resume and portfolio.  There are two types of accounts: a free account and a pro account. The free account has all the basics that the website offers, including your own URL address and space for up to 10 images. The pro account, which costs $9.99/month, includes unlimited image space and video embedding. You can upgrade and downgrade any time you want.

Over all, Krop is a very professional website, good for students that have amassed a presentable portfolio.

2) Behance: Behance.net’s job list section looks slightly similar to Krop’s. Once again jobs are listed in the order in which they are posted, and you can do your own search to narrow down the jobs you see on the page. The main difference between Krop’s search features and Behance’s is that Behance does have a way to narrow jobs by industry.

A drop down menu next to the keyword search field reveals options ranging from Blogging to Video Game Design and seemingly everything in between. If you have a clear idea of what you want to do in the art world and what type of industry you want to go into, Behance is an easy way to search for jobs in that industry.

An important advantage that Behance has over Krop is that according to their tour page (scroll down slightly to see), their membership and hosting service is unlimited and completely free. This means you can put as much text, audio, image and video projects on your personal space without having to pay extra. For college students or recent graduates on a budget, this is a big plus.

3) Creative Jobs Central: What makes this site stand out is the sheer amount of categories that jobs are divided into. If you’re looking for a website that goes the extra mile to make searching for a specific industry easy, then just look at this homepage.  Creative Jobs Central has a section for everything from theater jobs to beauty jobs.

The catch is that all those choices is that they don’t come cheap. Membership fees for the site can run pretty steep for a student on a budget. 1-month membership is $10.99, 3-month membership is $26.97 (plus $15 dollars if you want access to all job postings and not just one specific industry) and 6-month membership is $47.94.

If you already have some money to use, and you don’t mind using it for your job search, you could do worse than this site. Otherwise, a good way to use it is to find job posts that list company contact information, and contact the company yourself. All’s fair in love and job searching after all.

These sites represent a tiny fraction of the different kinds of job search websites that are at your fingertips. Whether they have optional fees, are completely free or have required fees, they all serve the same purpose. It’s ultimately up to you to choose the one that best suits your needs. But hey, at least you have the entire Internet to search.

As you go forward as a SCAD student, it’ll become more and more important to keep in mind where you want to take your art career. Thankfully for everyone involved, this is another one of those situations where you don’t have to go alone into the big, wide world.

Some of you may already be familiar with the Career and Alumni Success office, at least marginally. You may have received Job Wire emails that come from that office. And if you haven’t, you should. Trust me, I realize how strong the temptation is to just ignore those emails or throw them in your Spam folder. Considering how hectic emails can get for eLearning students you may just gloss over them accidentally.

But despite it all, they’re actually a really good resource. They drastically cut down on the time you spend manually looking for internships or job opportunities. And any time saved in searching is time gained in applying. Those emails also normally include names of students who have gotten internships or jobs already. If nothing else, that can be a motivator to work even harder to find one of your own. To sign up for Job Wire newsletters and to see archives of past newsletters, just go to this page.

Of course, to really take advantage of the Job Wire emails, you need to know about another resource available, Student Central. Student Central is a searchable database of internships and jobs that is updated on a fairly regular basis. Because you specify what school you go to when registering, you can even search by what majors companies are looking for.

Along with Job Wire and Student Central, you can also take advantage of the Career Toolkit available on the Career Services website. It includes links to several pages and PDF documents that help you with everything from finding career options for your major to writing a good resume. Everything is explained in a way that is easy to follow and helpful. The set of PDF files that deals with building your resume, for example, breaks down each section into clearly labeled individual parts. It makes a task hat could be daunting and confusing and makes it easier to accomplish.

This is all in addition to the career advisers available to you. Every school has its own career adviser, making it easier to talk to somebody who you’re sure knows the field you’re interested in. They’re also the ones to go to if you have any questions about the resources mentioned earlier. A full list of advisers, what schools they represent, and their email addresses can be found on this section of the Career and Alumni Success page.

It’s no secret that right now is an economically tough time for everyone. But there’s no reason why you can’t take steps early on as a student to ensure that when you graduate, you’ll be better prepared to face the world. You’ll get your foot in the door, and best of all, you’ll be more likely to get a job after graduation.