Peer Book Report: Resumes for Architecture and Related Careers, edited by VGM Career Horizons

Resumes for Architecture and Related Careers 
With Sample Cover Letters
From the Editors of VGM Career Horizons

The Career and Professional Development office is at the service of the Pratt Community for not only helping students find jobs and internships but also to help students create an outstanding resume and first impression. Resumes for Architecture and Related Careers is a book available to students in the Career and Professional Development library. During the spring many students find themselves in the summer internship application process and what better way to spend your time relaxing on the lawn than catching up on your "application must haves!"Within the pages of Resumes for Architecture and Related Careers you'll find help with writing concise, stylish, and easy-to-read resumes that naturally outshine others! Inside you'll also find:

• 100 sample resumes
• Cover letters
• Tools to help draft resume ideas
• The most popular resume formats
• Tips on writing and active vocabulary
• Layout advice

Let the Career and Professional Development office library lead you to interviews and job offers! Happy Hunting!

To see other books in our library, see our collection at http://www.librarything.com/catalog/prattcareer.

From Apple Intern to Employee

Eric Goud, a 2011 BFA graduate in Advertising/ Art Direction, was one of the lucky ones. After landing a summer internship with Apple two years in a row, he was offered a job at their design office in California. Eric was kind enough to answer a few questions to give all the current students a bit of insight, and a bit of hope. Check out the Q&A below. 

1. What is your position and responsibilities at Apple?

I am a design assistant with the retail design group. As far as my responsibilities go I provide assistance to senior designers, art directors and creative directors on the team. This can be working on everything from illustrations, icon design, posters, gift cards, product launch graphics, barricade designs for new store openings, t-shirts, mocking up concepts, printing and mounting exec presentations and internal projects. I also do my best to keep the studio tidy, do archiving of digital and hard copies of work and recycling of the confidential work.

2. How did you get the internship with Apple?

While cradling a coffee in a beloved morning type class I heard from a friend that a recruiter from Apple was coming to New York to visit a few of the design schools looking for interns for the summer, my eyes opening up a bit. I submitted a portfolio to the good folks at career services and was given a chance to interview with the recruiter when she visited the city. When the interview was over I left a hard copy of my portfolio with her and a few months later I got a call asking if I would be interested in doing another round of interviews with a few of the CD's from the retail group. After a two and a half hour iChat interview with various members of the group I was lucky enough to get an offer for the gig. They flew me out and I was set-up for the summer. 

3. How did your education at Pratt prepare you for the job?

Pratt gave me a solid understanding of design on a formal basis which is obviously crucial and really a prerequisite for any design/direction position. My education at Pratt also helped me broaden the way I think about design and sharpened my thinking through all of the conversations with instructors and friends around work. I am thankful to have had the chance to study there because of the incredibly wide range of influences and experiences you have at your fingertips. When you live in Brooklyn and go to Pratt everyday you have the opportunity to do, hear, or see something amazing or at the very least new. With instructors and peers who are studying architecture, painting, illustration, interior design, poetry, critical visual studies etc you are exposed to lots of ideas and these relationships and conversations about work and life help you articulate your ideas and develop your unique point of view which is a valuable thing to have. 

4. What did Pratt NOT prepare you for?

It can be a bit overwhelming being brought into a big company with a very specific way of working together to get work approved. Learning how to coordinate with producers, art directors, visualization artists, web development, executive creative directions, designers and how each position functions is something that I had to learn as I went along. But that is why it is good to get a few internships and get a bit of experience working with a group. 

5. Advice to current students?

Keep your head on a swivel and take advantage of the time you have at Pratt with your friends and instructors, dig in and ask questions. Make lots of work. Another thing that I would say is consciously work on developing your design vocabulary and on clearly expressing your ideas. This is a craft in and of itself and a valuable one to hone. It's great if you can make really beautiful work but if you are not able to articulate the thinking behind it you run the risk of having your work not being understood. Lastly eat Bergen Bagels everyday. 

Student Leader Exhibition In East One and Alcove Gallery

Review by Jessica Kwasniak, Creating Writing Undergraduate, Peer Advisor (2012)

As the optional leadership course, Connections, comes to a close, the Student Affairs office and Career Services have opened their doors and their walls to the artwork of several student leaders. The shows displays the work of Cody Hughes, the current president of the Student Government Association; Laura Juncker and Sam Harvey, both past Orientation Leaders;  Peter Linden, head of the Sculpture Club; Angeline Ucci and Kathryn Moy, both Peer Councelors; and Pamela Stolz, the Sustainability Chair of SGA.

Exhibition view from East One Gallery

Laura Juncker, a sophomore Painting major,  offered her bright candy pink painting Bob Ross Pinup.  Her painting feels tactile; there is a sense of physicality to the portrayal of the Pinup. Her open rope, revealing sections of her very beautiful and even-toned skin, is splattered with paint, whereas her skin is completely clean. The painting has a slightly Impressionist aura to it due to its color and the visible brushstrokes. Juncker’s piece offers a commentary on popular culture, and of pinups.  The pinup of the painting has a paint-stained robe and t-strap heels on. She poses with on foot propped on the stool she sit on, in front of an easel with her painting on it. She is working on a landscape; somehow the ideal and the real clash and morph in this painting. The unnatural shade of pink, which draws the viewers eye in from a distance, and the pinup’s posed body show the performative nature of pinups, the falsity of their actions. Her robe is perfectly placed to show just enough leg and just enough decolletage to taunt the viewer with her sexuality, and also reveals the opposing forces of the posed body and the idealized Bob Ross influenced landscape on the easel.

Laura Juncker's Bob Ross Pinup, 2011

Cody Hughes displayed three works, two  of which are blown up prints of what appear to be google maps images. The first print is called Modern Landscapes: 2, and with the very faint imprint of the word “Google” in the image. The image is a bit unclear, the viewer is uncertain where this landscape comes from. It is truly a Modernized Landscape; it is a satellite view. There is also something incredible ominous about the piece as well, something Orwellian. The image of “Google” leads the viewer to realize that no space is private anymore. We, as a society, have over-commercialized everything. Everything is documented, everything is surveyed. The sister to Modernized Landscapes: 2, sit on the wall beside it. Modernized Landscapes: 3 has a much more sculptural feel to it. The top of the image has pixilated blue and white patches, almost like a poorly done map of an ocean, blown up to the point of illiteracy. His last piece in the show is a sculpture entitled Deviation Prevention System, or DPS for short. The tripod base reminds the viewer of an easel, but through the use of a harness, which is attached to a beam, weighing it down, bringing the viewer’s focus downward, the oppression is clear. The easel-like tripod shows the aim to create but the harness pulls the viewer down. On one of the legs of the tripod, felt is tied. It gives an ominous sense of smothering suffocating, and hiding one’s self. The name inforces these feelings.  We are oppressed before we can begin. We cannot deviate through art if we cannot perform the act of making it. 

A much more fun piece is Sam Harvey’s Midtown Comics Wayfinding Symbols. This sophomore Graphic Design major created fun, comic book influenced “wayfinding symbols.” The symbols are clear and clean. They are a fun way to symbolize the stairs, cashier, and bathroom. They have a massive appeal and charm to them, along with legibility. They are very easy to understand, I even believe a hild would be able to understand the signs and be able to move about the store freely.

Peter Linden, another senior sculpture major, placed his sculpture Holding This in the show. The piece shows a contrast between the natural and man-made.  The ciderblocks that support the white pot mimic/replace the trees in the holograph on the floor. The glove in the pot reinstates human presence in the piece. There is a transition from the natural. The cinderblocks become the support and through the holograph nature becomes augmented, and idealized. In a way nature is further destroyed by its presence in the holograph. It is made ingenuine.

Angeline Ucci displays a political animal rights attitute towards her collage, Untitled. The beautiful wildlife images mixed with chaotic colors leads the viewer to have mixed emotions about the piece. Are the juxtaposing colors and the chaos of the piece, showing how we destroy and idolize nature at the same time? We honor it, we crave it, but we can still destroy it.

Kathryn Moy shows her skills with her project, Designing for Occupy Wall Street. Her presentation, called Store, Show, and GO! Designing for the Urban Nomadic Dweller shows all steps of the creative process of creating a movaing storage container for Occupy protestors.  Her product serves a functional purpose, and fulfills a need. Looking at the presentation and the model of the product, everything seems to work.  This piece is meant to be mass-produced, so it has a bit more geometric and symmetrical aspects.

Pamela Stolz, a senior painting major, exhibits Untitled in the show. The composition feels impressionistic and gives a sense of breathing through brush strokes. The sibject matter is interesting. There are two people, a man and a woman on a couch, the both hold glass bottles in hand. The viewer cannot really distinguish the faces, they are a bit blurred/illegiable. The facial features are there, but there is not enough information to give us a sense of who they are. They have markings on their face, in green paint. They seem like tribal markings, but the viewer, or at least I, could not distinguish what they meant.

Overall the show was amazing, and it was interesting to see what other students were creating. I mean, we all spend copious amounts of out time producing art, so why shouldn’t we share it. The show is currently still up, and I would highly suggest seeing the show.

This exhibition is part of the Student Exhibition Spaces Program coordinated by the Center for Career and Professional Development at Pratt Institute.  All current students can submit work for inclusion in future exhibitions by emailing ccpdprograms@gmail.com for more information.

Internship Success: Brianne VanPutte

Brianne VanPutte is a senior Animation major who has taken on several successful internships during her time at Pratt. After taking the time from her senior project, she answered these questions about her internship experience:

What were the companies/businesses/studios you worked at? What do they do?

Nickelodeon- In NYC, a lot of the pre-production and research is conducted for their animated shows. Voice recording takes place here, the writing process, and editing. Most of the art is done outside of NYC (Storyboards in LA and animation is outsourced out of the country). 

Augenblick Studios- They do the storyboarding, design and animation for their projects and have a lot of creative control, because of this interns get a lot of hands on experience!

BrainPOP.com-They create educational online resources/movies/games for kids and schools. Their web content is Flash based.

How did you find your internships?

I've been pretty lucky to have had 3 internships while at Pratt. My first was with Nickelodeon as the Production Intern for Dora the Explorer and Go Diego Go!

I found that internship on my own through Nickelodeons webpage and really enjoyed the selection process. Their Human Resources Dept. was super friendly during my initial interview and asked me what I was interested in and then told me what was available in NYC. I thought Dora was a great fit for what I was looking for from an internship and met with the Associate Producer, Maria Nerahoo, for my second interview. At that point everything just fell into place and it was a great place to work.

My second internship was an animation internship with Augenblick Studios in Brooklyn. I heard about the internship from another Pratt student who had previously interned for them and she gave me the producers contact information. While I was there we were working on Ugly American's for Comedy Central.

My current internship is with BrainPOP.com. It is sort of a mesh-up of a animation and production internship, and my supervisor is a Pratt Alumni. I found this internship through a Department of Digital Arts e-mail.  

What did you do as an intern at each?

Nickelodeon- I did a lot of different things ranging from running things from one department to another, delivering scripts to the recording studio, sitting in on animatic editing meetings, proofreading scripts, cataloging and logging information about episodes, and assisting with putting together the monthly expense reports and production schedule. I really never knew what I might end up doing on a day to day basis. It was great because I got to see the entire process of producing amazing children's television! 

Augenblick Studios- At Augenblick Studios interns get to inbetween animation (you're given the key poses of a character from the animator and then draw the "inbetween" drawings to get the character from one pose to the next) and clean up rough backgrounds. It's really rewarding when you see the finished product and get to see your work in the episodes. Interns are credited as well, I felt that the animators, designers and editors were more than willing to help teach interns, which was great. While I was there we worked on the second season of Ugly Americans. 

BrainPOP.com- At BrainPOP I am currently creating a database of all of the assets used in the BrainPOPjr.com movies. This is a great internship because I am getting to learn new programs for cataloguing that I was not familiar with before (Adobe Bridge and Evernote). 

What was the best part of being an intern at these jobs?

Each of my internships have been great learning experiences and a lot of fun. Nickelodeon was a great place to start because I was the only Production Intern and was able to get the one-on-one supervision that I needed at the time from my supervisors. I gained a lot more confidence from working there, and I learned a lot about organization and production planning that has come in handy while working on my senior film this year. There also seemed to be a lot of baked goods and candy, so that was also amazing!

Augenblick studios was great because there were several interns at a time, so I made a lot of friends who are peers, and learned a lot from the other interns. The atmosphere at Augenblick Studios is great, it's like the old animation studios you read about in animation history class, which just makes it more fun. There's always music playing and it's great to talk to the animators and designers about their personal projects too, everyone there was very creative.

BrainPOP, is really different, it's web based so there are programmers and gamers, and all kinds of people! BrainPOP also has an ESL group, so there are a lot of different languages being spoken and cultures represented. It is definitely a unique place to work!

What did you learn the most?

I also learned a lot about working with a group. The animation industry is a people driven industry, and it takes a lot of people to get anything done in it! You can teach yourself programs, and how to draw well, but you need practice working with a team too, and you can't teach yourself that.  

The other most important thing I learned from my internship is probably how to manage my time, and how to be productive during my commute! 

Any advice for students trying to intern in your field?

Try everything! Each of my internships have been completely different experiences, and I don't regret it at all. I wanted to try out as much as I could in the animation industry while I'm still in school, so that I have an idea of what I want to do afterwards. 

Do I have any clue? No. Everything has been great for different reasons, and I'm still trying to figure it out. I think a lot of students limit themselves to one dream job, but forget that there is just so much out there to try. It's great experience and the work is fun. 

Do the internship for credit if you can though! There's no reason to do an internship on top of a full course load, you'll get burned out and enjoy the internship much less if you feel overwhelmed by it. You'll learn as much or more from the internship as you would from a studio elective, so it is worth it!

--Thanks Brianne! Best wishes to your bright future!