Pairing business, technology and creativity, our students come to the heart of Silicon Valley to deepen and grow their passions. The result? A skilled and dynamic community with a social life that is surprisingly robust.
Immersive, collaborative and designed to unlock your creativity—for over 130 years USV has been helping people turn their passion into their professions. Today, it’s your turn. Explore our program offerings to help you develop the skills you need for the job you’ll love.
This is the beginning of that adventure, as well as your first assignment. If you already have existing work to show us, simply gather and organize it. If you don’t have any samples related to your prospective field of study, please see below for details on what you should plan to create and submit.
Select your best work to show off your technical skills and your creativity! Include 5–10 examples of your best and most recent work. Your art samples should reflect your passion and creativity. Applicants are advised to include at least three examples of work made from direct observation.
You’ll want to make sure that your work looks the best it can onscreen. Evenly light your picture and use a digital camera or smartphone to capture a detailed image. If you have access to a scanner and your work fits in it, use it! You will get great-quality images to work with and the high resolution will allow you to crop while keeping the details.
If you are capturing 3D work, take your images against a white background (a white wall will do the trick—or a crease-free white sheet makes a great backdrop). There are some great tutorials on YouTube that show you how to take great photos without a specialist’s equipment.
Save or export a Jpeg.
Presentation is important. If you have access to photo editing software, feel free to edit and clean up your shots. Organize your awesome pics into a presentable format such as Google Slides.
Work can be submitted as a PowerPoint, Google Slides, PDF, MPEG4 (for video), or Jpegs.
Your samples will be graded based on originality/creativity, craftsmanship, design elements, and presentation.
Taking pictures of your work is a great way to document your improvement. We do not expect you to be a professional yet. We are here to train you to be the professional you aspire to be!
Do you have any questions or need any help to submit or create work samples? Please contact the Department Director, Ricardo Kayanan, or your Admissions Representative. We are here to help you.
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