Certificate in Communications And Media Fundamentals

at Centennial College - Story Arts Centre Campus Canada

The Digital Visual Effects program is the only two-year college diploma offering of its kind in Ontario. Facilitated at Centennial College's Story Arts Centre, it provides you with the opportunity to learn the industry-standard techniques required to produce the photo-realistic visual effects seen in films that would be impossible to capture with a live-action camera.

In this diploma program's courses, you learn to work with the various aspects of the film-making process and bring them together into a seamless final product, while also developing your skills in industry-standard software. The Digital Visual Effects program focuses on the core skills needed to make you employable in the VFX industry and gives you the ability to explain how visual effects contribute to the entire process of storytelling in motion pictures.

You channel your efforts into demonstrating these concepts and core skills through a unique final project, for which you produce a demo reel suitable for job application in the visual effects field.

Program Highlights

• You learn industry-standard techniques in image processing, editing, lighting, rendering, matte painting, set extension, compositing and post VFX that employers are looking for.
• During the program, you produce a marketable demo and self-promotional package suitable for the VFX industry.
• A field placement in the final semester provides a valuable opportunity to work in the visual effects industry.
• You attend Digital Visual Effects courses at Centennial College's Story Arts Centre, located close to Toronto's downtown core and the major VFX studios.
• During your time in the program, you study and work in labs that are equipped with the latest tools and industry-standard software.
• The program provides a practical, hands-on and entrepreneurial approach that prepares you for sustainable VFX-related careers.
• Opportunities exist to collaborate with students in the digital animation, game design, photography, broadcasting, music, art and theatre programs at the Story Arts Centre. This is a unique opportunity to network, learn and work with industry professionals.

Contemporary Journalism is a three-semester graduate certificate program that will explore new tools, trends and directions in journalism while maintaining an emphasis on sourced, credible and verifiable storytelling. You'll learn in an interactive environment with courses covering news reporting, writing, editing and visual storytelling while also exploring social media, mobile and emerging technologies (virtual reality), and delving into multimedia storytelling and data journalism. 

In a digital world, the smartphone is increasingly the newsroom for journalists and the living room for the audience. The Contemporary Journalism program will emphasize the use of mobile devices, including smartphones and tablets, to source, produce and share credible multimedia journalism.
The program will culminate with entrepreneurial and professional practice elements, including a seven-week field placement, during which you'll demonstrate and refine your skills in today’s rapidly evolving media environment. 

Program Highlights

• Develop new multiplatform, digital and social media skills for the evolving world of reporting and sharing;
• Learn to write, produce and share stories in an energetic, dynamic and hands-on environment, led by a faculty of seasoned professionals and educators drawn from all sectors of the industry;
• Gain entrepreneurial skills along with personal branding abilities to help you stand out in the industry;
• Collaborate with the other students enrolled in programs such as photography, public relations, film and television, music, art, theatre and interactive media management;
• Participate in client-focused projects.

In Centennial College's three-year Journalism program, you gain the skills you need to navigate and succeed in a changing industry. By going from the classroom to the newsroom, you come to understand the multifaceted and fast-paced journalism industry, which focuses on interesting people, places and things.

In this advanced diploma program you:

• Cover a variety of topics while developing the critical foundation skills you need for the industry.
• Apply your newsroom skills to an award-winning community newspaper, a news website and radio-television news, all of which makes you versatile and industry-ready as soon as you graduate.
• Develop new multiplatform skills for the evolving world of news reporting.
• From covering breaking news to exploring human interest stories, as a journalist you will be responsible for reporting events, interviewing newsmakers and examining the issues of our times.

Please note: This program requires you to have and use a mobile computing device that meets or exceeds the recommended hardware and software requirements. 

Program Highlights

• You experience one-on-one interaction with faculty members in an ultra-modern, professional newsroom.
• The Story Arts Centre campus, where the Journalism program is facilitated, offers you access to publishing, broadcast and Internet facilities.
• Hands-on, real-world experience is available through award-winning community media, including the East York Observer newspaper, Freshly Pressed magazine, the Toronto Observer news website, radio and television newscasts available online.
• With a stellar faculty, whose combined credits include NBC News, CBC News, CTV News, OMNI, The Toronto Star, Toronto Sun, National Post, Globe and Mail and more, your journalism training is relevant, demanding and highly effective.
• You connect with excellent faculty, mentors and guest speakers and get to partake in exclusive field trips.
• Through the field trips and your field placement, you have the opportunity to make exclusive news media connections.

Centennial College's Dance – Performance program, the ultimate stepping stone to becoming a professional dancer, helps you dance your way to a fulfilling career.

Facilitated by the School of Communications, Media, Arts and Design, the dynamic Dance Performance program is on the cutting edge of what's new, innovative, current and popular in today's dance culture. This college diploma program focuses on helping you to develop a high standard of performance and technical dance skills in:

•  Commercial dance
•  Hip-hop
•  Ballet
•  Jazz
•  Contemporary
•  Cultural
•  World trends
•  Indigenous North American dance forms
•  Acrobatics
•  Singing
•  Choreography
•  Pas de deux

In addition to learning technical dance skills, you take courses that nurture and enrich the mind-body connection and enhance the ability for storytelling. Throughout the two years you spend in the Dance – Performance program, you also learn and develop the skills and tools needed to cope with issues such as self and body image, stress, rejection, nutrition and better understand anatomy and injury prevention.

With a learning environment that reflects today's industry, you graduate with a professional resume, photos and dance show-reel. You will also possess a strong entrepreneurial spirit, a professional attitude and instruction ability within the training and performance environment.

Please note: This program requires you to have and use a mobile computing device that meets or exceeds the recommended hardware and software requirements.

Program Highlights

• You acquire performance skills at professional, artistic and technical levels.
• A field placement in the final semester provides a valuable opportunity to work in the industry.
• Both the field placement and the Dance Performance program's industry connections allow you to network, learn and work with industry professionals who are in demand worldwide.
• At the Story Arts Centre, you collaborate with students in photography, film, television, music, art and theatre programs.
• The Dance Performance program's practical, hands-on and entrepreneurial approach prepares you for sustainable dance-related careers directly upon graduation.

Centennial College's Graphic Design program prepares you for a multidisciplinary design career, and has a graduate employment rate that exceeds 80 per cent. Facilitated at the Story Arts Centre, the courses in this advanced diploma program take a hands-on approach in an intimate studio environment, rather than having you sit passively in large lecture halls. With small class sizes, you have lots of opportunities to work one-on-one with your professors.

In this college graphic design program, you:

•  Master industry-standard Adobe software including Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign
•  Learn creative problem solving and design thinking
•  Design for print, including advertisements, magazines, books and packaging
•  Design responsive websites, mobile apps and create exciting motion graphics
•  Explore drawing, photography, illustration and type design
•  Learn professional practice skills to land a great job or start your own design business
•  Contribute something unique and innovative to the design community in a thesis course
•  Learn on the job and get course credits through an industry field placement in your final semester
•  Interact with industry professionals
•  Become a student member of the Association of Registered Graphic Designers of Ontario (RDG Ontario)
•  Learn from professors who are current and professionally active in the design industry

Please note:This program requires you to have and use a mobile computing device that meets or exceeds the recommended hardware and software requirements. 

Program Highlights

• The Centennial College Graphic Design program is formally recognized by RGD Ontario, which represents more than 3,000 graphic designers, managers, educators and students across Ontario.
• A combination of multidisciplinary design skills and practical experience sets you apart from the competition.
• You will be more flexible in your design solutions and more desirable in the marketplace.

The Graphic Design program will develop your abilities to:

• Think creatively and design effectively for print, motion, and interactive media.
• Execute your ideas professionally in any medium.
• Communicate effectively with employers and clients.
• Start your career in any facet of the design industry.
• Market yourself as a freelancer or start your own business.
• Affect social change through your design problem-solving skills.
• Understand all aspects of industry standard workflow, from initial creative, through to print production or interactive prototyping.

The Communications and Media Fundamentals program at Centennial College is an intensive one-year preparation undertaking. If you're looking for a pathway to pursue further post-secondary education, consider this certificate program, which will help you to develop communication skills while offering an introduction to the communications and media industries.

With guidance from experienced Communications and Media Fundamentals faculty members and practical application of theory, you'll obtain competencies for short- and long-term success.

In this media program's courses, you'll:

• Partake in creative exploration and experimentation with contemporary digital and social media production tools;
• Create and maintain forums on social media networks using rich media applications;
• Apply theoretical principles to produce practical and focused written communications and media solutions;
• Research and describe media forms, audiences, platforms, and "traditional" and "non-traditional" communication methods;
• Use appropriate vocabulary, terminology, basic numeracy and communicative strategies necessary for the communications and media environment;
• Apply developed English language skills to a presentation portfolio;
• Write and present in basic narrative formats for a variety of media platforms;
• Examine roles and responsibilities of global citizenship in personal and professional contexts;
• Examine beliefs, values and behaviours that form individual and community identities and the basis for respectful relationships;
• Apply knowledge of communications and media workplaces, environments, and practices to develop job search strategies and early career success strategies.

Program Highlights
When you successfully complete Communications and Media Fundamentals, you'll receive an offer to these College's School of Communication, Media, Arts and Design three-year advanced diploma programs:

• Advertising and Marketing Communications Management
• Journalism
• Broadcasting and Film

Centennial College's Fine Arts Studio program is an intensive two-year offering with emphasis on physically creating art through drawing, painting and sculpting.

By getting your hands dirty (literally), you learn the latest skills and techniques, find your own creative voice and be prepared to launch your career as an artist. You spend more time in the studio in two years at Centennial College than other schools offer in four!

In addition to the creative process, this arts diploma program offers one of Ontario's most comprehensive professional practice curriculum's. You'll graduate well-prepared to thrive as a self-employed artist in the professional arts community.

In this Fine Arts Studio program, you:

• Develop advanced technical, conceptual and professional skills required to engage the contemporary arts community.
• Work independently both in and out of the studio environment.
• Receive lots of one-on-one attention.
• Begin to nurture a lifetime of growth as a professional visual artist and storyteller.
• Have a progressive learning experience led by a collaborative team of teachers.
• Be encouraged to develop personal direction and approach to build your own unique voice and style in visual storytelling.
• The Fine Arts Studio program is for you if you are serious about practicing as a professional. As a candidate, you should have meaningful prior experience, either through education, a lifetime personal commitment, and/or the professional equivalent.

Please note: This program requires you to have and use a mobile computing device that meets or exceeds the recommended hardware and software requirements. 

Program Highlights

• The Fine Arts program frequently receives awards from both the Dean and the President for student satisfaction.
• A focus on traditional media, with selective integration of digital processes, gives you the skills necessary to thrive as a professional in the contemporary art world.
• You learn all about the business of being an artist, including getting shows and commissions, applying for grants, marketing yourself and building your career.
• In-school galleries allow for the opportunity to exhibit your work.
• You are exposed to professional exhibition opportunities, where the sales are real. Public exposure is also offered through rental programs.
• Attention is paid to individual creative growth in a studio environment.
• Enthusiastic faculty members are all accomplished professional artists and teach by drawing from their personal experiences.
• The Story Arts Centre is close to the heart of the city and gallery communities, but offers a welcoming non-institutional environment.

The Bachelor of Public Relations Management, Honours program at Centennial College's Story Arts Centre is a unique, first-of-its-kind offering in Canada that combines public relations and business studies. In four years, this program will prepare you for an exciting career in public relations (PR), social media and corporate communications.

The Bachelor of Public Relations Management, Honours program, offered by the School of Communications, Media, Arts and Design in collaboration with the School of Business, will balance the theory, principles and application of PR with a solid foundation in business principles through ten core business courses.

During your time in the program, you'll complete real-world projects that will allow you to apply your newly-acquired knowledge. From writing media releases to planning events, you'll engage in practical scenarios that will ground the core classroom concepts of this four-year degree.

To prepare you for a variety of careers, the Bachelor of Public Relations Management courses will include a strong focus on:

• Writing
• Social and digital media
• Research and communications planning
• Strategic communications
• Corporate communications

The Advertising - Creative and Digital Strategy program addresses the high demand for creators in the digital field of advertising and marketing, which is growing faster than all other areas in the advertising industry.

This Advertising Graduate Certificate program takes place at the Story Arts Centre in Toronto and blends Centennial College's experience in digital media with our strengths in business and marketing. The program focuses on helping you create engaging digital experiences built on solid creative strategy. You become immersed in the digital field and learn how to develop breakthrough creative advertising campaigns.

Through your courses, you acquire the necessary skills in creative strategy, writing, developing creative concepts, art direction, collaboration, presentation and entrepreneurialism. During a field placement, which is part of the second semester, Creative and Digital Strategy students take part in team assignments, working in a collaborative environment in the real world.

You’ll also learn new technologies and platforms that keep you informed about recent innovations in the digital creative field.

The program focuses on five key areas:

• Creative strategy, to ensure advertising meets clients' business objectives.
• Digital storytelling, to build on the power of storytelling in developing impactful creative advertising.
• Brand engagement, to create strong connections with consumers.
• Entrepreneurship, to foster key business skills that encourage innovation and risk-taking.
• Emerging platforms, to ensure you are up-to-date on the latest in digital technology impacting the advertising industry.

In this program, you:

• Gain an understanding of the digital creation process from a creative director's point of view.
• Learn how to craft a creative digital strategy that delivers results.
• Develop a strong portfolio and case studies for prospective employers.
• Enhance presentation skills to help sell ideas.
• Understand the impact of technology on creative development.
• Foster digital storytelling skills to bring brands to life online.
• Analyze and solve business and marketing challenges for clients by applying innovative creative and digital techniques.
• Complement in-class education with a field placement that will provide the opportunity to work in the industry and hone your skills.

Please note:- This program requires you to have and use a mobile computing device (i.e. laptop, tablet) that meets or exceeds the recommended hardware requirements. 

Program Highlights

• This Creative and Digital Strategy program gives you the opportunity to turn a degree or diploma into an exciting career in a growing field in the advertising industry.
• You learn how to create digitally-centric creative portfolio pieces using current industry design and writing standards.
• Faculty members have extensive industry experience and can help you connect to the industry by tapping into their personal networks.
• The program is offered at the Story Arts Centre, which is about 15 minutes from most advertising and digital marketing agencies in Toronto.
• At the Story Arts Centre, there are numerous opportunities to collaborate with students in a range of other marketing and communications-focused programs to enhance the learning experience.

The Publishing - Book, Magazine and Electronic program is one of the most prestigious programs of its kind in Canada. Through hands-on education, it will prepare you for employment in a wide variety of areas in the publishing industry.

Established in 1974, this unique and award-winning publishing graduate certificate program has earned several accolades for academic excellence and for the career success of its graduates.

In this School of Communications, Media, Arts and Design program, you'll learn to:

• Be an integral part of the team that helps to shape the evolution of Canada's cultural and literary landscape;
• Publish e-books;
• Help build the careers of the next generation of writers in the publishing industry;
• Take part in publishing the bi-yearly On the Danforth magazine.

Your experience in the Publishing program will be rounded out by an industry field placement at a book or magazine publisher in Toronto. During this time, you'll acquire critical working experience, industry knowledge and professional relationships as you initiate your new career.

A career in book, magazine or online publishing promises a world of innovation, stories and culture that integrates your creative, marketing and business skills.

Program Highlights

• The accelerated two-semester format will cover all facets of the publishing process, including e-books and online magazines.
• You'll complete a six-week field placement in the industry.
• The graduate certificate you'll earn reflects a high standard of learning.