What is Computational Media? – Retrospective from a Graduating Senior

What is Computational Media? This is a question I have been asking myself for practically every year I’ve been at Georgia Tech. The truth I have come to realize, however, is that Computational Media is truly whatever you make of it. Let me explain.

I came to Georgia Tech with the goal of becoming an animator, someone who works at an animation studio like Disney or Pixar. I chose Georgia Tech rather than an art school because I wanted to know the technical background of animation software so that one day I may even be able to make my own. Since I wanted to combine both a technical aspect and an artistic aspect, I believed Computational Media would be the perfect fit for me, and luckily, I still do!

To go into more detail about what this degree is, Computational Media is a combination of Georgia Tech’s Computer Science degree and Literature, Media, and Communications (LMC)  degree. This allowed me to learn the technical know-how of a Computer Science degree while also still learning the film principles and background for the more artistic side of animation.

In my opinion, there are two ways to approach this degree. One, you know exactly what you want and because of that you are easily able to tailor your schedule and the types of classes you want to take to those goals. For example, since I know I want to do animation, I took classes like LMC 2730, Construction of the Moving Image, to further my skills in that area. The second way, I would say, is that you don’t know what you want. Believe it or not, I would say that Computational Media is a fantastic degree to have if you know you want to be involved in some sort of media or artistic field but are not sure which angle to approach it at. In my case, even though I knew I wanted to pursue animation, I took many classes in live action film production, video editing, general media studies, video game creation, etc. All of these studies were adjacent to the goal of animation and honestly helped me consider other fields in which I could use this skill. Because of this, I would say I’m a jack of all trades when it comes to different forms of media production.

Now the hardest part of Computational Media is the smallness of the degree. As someone who is currently searching for jobs / applying for internships / applying for grad school, I find myself constantly having to sell myself with my degree and my skills simply because no one knows what Computational Media is or means. I really had to research different fields that my degree applied to and made sure my resume backs my computing skills. Building up both personal projects and class projects so that they look fantastic on a resume is crucial if you want a Computer Science job as a Computational Media major. The same goes for if you want a job in the film industry. You will have a lot of very different types of projects to put on a resume but a lot of times they don’t overlap, meaning you will absolutely need to tailor your resume to the job / internship you are applying for because that’s where recruiters can get confused about what your degree means.

Despite that previous paragraph, I must say that I love my degree. It truly allowed me to experiment in different careers and fields that I have even the slightest bit of interest in and even opened me up to new possibilities that I might not have considered before. We may not have many active alumni, in fact the most famous Computational Media major that I know of is a YouTuber, Danny Gonzalez, but the alumni who do remain connected have a strong passion for helping other Computational Media students find their way in this strange but exciting major. You can truly make this degree anything you want. Whether you want to pursue video game design or animation or UI/UX or even film production, you will find what you need here at Georgia Tech. Heck, if you feel as though you were lacking in any expertise in what you’re pursuing, there are numerous clubs on campus that are here to back you up, such as VGDev and Animation Club.

If you are someone who is applying to Tech and is considering a degree in Computational Media, I hope this gives you some more context. I will be graduating very soon, and I hope to be a very active alumni once I get my feet on the ground. I wish you the best of luck in your Computational Media endeavors, and I hope that you encounter the same joys of exploration and the same kindness of the people around you in this major as I have.

 

References

Computational Media @ Georgia Tech. (2019). CM Promo Video 2019. Georgia Tech. https://youtu.be/412sCbbiPf8?feature=shared

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