Experts By Design | High Point University

This tale is featured in the Slide 2022 edition of the HPU Journal.

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Learners in the David R. Hayworth College of Arts and Style and design make skilled connections in all regions of the arts.

For lots of aspiring interior designers, gaining arms-on practical experience and networking at the world’s biggest premier furnishing and layout trade exhibit, the High Place Industry, is a goal.

To HPU inside structure college students, the experience is merely an extension of their curriculum.

The biannual celebration appeals to business leaders all-around the world and supplies learners with experiential mastering alternatives to community with specialists in the sector.

Coming to HPU, Anastasia Avlonitis was eager to choose edge of this chance she understood would established her up for accomplishment.

“I wished to achieve the hands-on expertise I heard so significantly about,” she claims.

In the spring of 2022, Avlonitis walked into her 2nd Large Issue Current market encounter with self-confidence. She labored with Regina Andrew, a life-style brand that specializes in one of a kind lights, home furnishings and decor patterns, to enable customers with orders and take them by the showroom.

“I employed my imaginative views inside of profits and aided customers make decisions on what variety of finishes or products they wished,” says the junior inside design important from Westchester County, New York. “One of the reasons I chose to go to HPU for interior layout is simply because of these wonderful networking opportunities.”

Serious-Globe Benefits

Interior layout students learn all facets of style and design, from ideation to execution. They acquire knowledge doing the job on structure software program such as Revit and AutoCAD and understand about structure background, spatial theories and everything in involving.

It’s demanding but rewarding.

“Application of all aspects of design and style make these learners extremely marketable to businesses and adaptable in the place of work,” states Dr. Jane Nichols, chair and associate professor of inside layout and director of the Significant Issue Design and style Institute. “It is no shock many of our graduates currently have positions at important corporations in Denver, New York City and Nashville, while some others are pursuing innovative levels.”

Not only do students have the techniques to start a prosperous style and design career, but they have expert perception, far too. In addition to every day mentorship from professional professors, learners also link with market leaders on campus and at the Substantial Issue Marketplace.

A couple of of the movie star designers pupils hook up with consist of Magnolia mogul Joanna Gaines inside structure specialist Thom Felicia from the Emmy Award-winning show “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy” celeb designer, speaker and author Charlotte Moss and numerous extra.

Not All About Acting

Theater is far more than performing. It is many facets that add to the artwork — props, make-up, internet marketing, phase administration, ushering and a lot more. And HPU theater students study them all.

College students are in rehearsals five times a 7 days. It is exactly where they expand as specialists and as a group.

“You truly achieve that enterprise working experience and produce a local community close to you,” states Course of 2022 graduate Hailey Turner. “The theater office gets your residence. When you’re not there, you want you have been.”

Turner, who labored as an assistant venue supervisor at the Spoleto Festival in Charleston, South Carolina, in excess of the summer, double majored in theater and English at HPU.

Theater and dance work underneath a “company philosophy.” With two theater displays and a single dance concert a semester, theater majors audition for dance performances, and dancers audition for theater performances.

“There are so many options, and college are focused to generating certain you get the place you want to be,” says Turner.

Learners have sufficient opportunities, these kinds of as one particular-of-a-form learn lessons taught by professionals who have reached the amount of results college students aspire to attain.

Which is wherever pupils hook up with professionals, such as Joanna Jones, who played Peggy Schuyler and Maria Reynolds in “Hamilton” on Broadway Radio Metropolis Rocket Shelby Finnie, who starred in “The Prom” on Broadway and “Jesus Christ Superstar” are living on NBC and Dominick Amendum, who directed songs for “Wicked” and “The Prince of Egypt” in London’s West Finish.

The Graphic Variance

Graphic structure college students have the flexibility to be creative and the assist to aid them thrive immediately after graduation. And with tiny course measurements, inspiration and local community is by no means missing, according to Olivia Krodel, ’20.

That is why she chose HPU for graphic design and style.

Students choose from two routes: a Bachelor of Great Arts (BFA) with a concentration in graphic style and design or a Bachelor of Arts (BA) in design and style scientific tests with a focus in graphic design.

“Professors concentrate on a assorted array of jobs,” states Krodel, who operates as a graphic designer for Gannett. “I under no circumstances felt like I was repeating the exact point. When I graduated, I felt like I could consider on just about any structure task because I experienced this kind of a flexible and assorted background of tasks.”

Pupils are encouraged to combine mediums these kinds of as photography, collage and hand drawings. And the guidance pupils have from professors lets them to consider imaginative dangers and resolve problems.

“There’s a lifestyle of a can-do mindset,” suggests Janis Dougherty, instructor of graphic layout. “The tight interactions college students cultivate with one particular another and with college create a place in which we can all get good challenges with our perform.”

Crafting Assurance

“The atmosphere at HPU is not like any other,” suggests Madilynn Just about every, ’22.

HPU’s campus fosters creativity. It’s why learners in the School of Arts and Style walk into class self-assured and prepared to make.

“There’s generally music taking part in on the promenade that receives you in a creative mode,” says Every. “Whenever I stroll into the art constructing, I’m like ‘Yes, let us crush whichever today’s going to provide on.’ ”

For the reason that of its central place, HPU has access to the state’s major art hubs, like Seagrove, North Carolina, usually referred to as “the pottery money,” and house to Ben Owen III, American studio potter and HPU’s Artist in Home.

Owen makes various visits to campus just about every semester. He teaches learn courses on the fundamental principles of pottery, operates just one-on-a person with learners and provides opinions on their person assignments.

As a ceramic studio assistant, Macy McFerren, ’23, used some just one-on-a single time with Owen, who not only taught her methods for throwing, but for advertising and marketing her art and owning a business, as well.

“His several years of practical experience in the advertising realm have been helping me determine out how to kick-commence my individual studio,” she says.

And since McFerren took benefit of every possibility to master and increase at HPU, she’s self-assured in her occupation after graduation.

“Going into my sophomore calendar year, I was extremely timid in the studio and not confident about my artwork,” states McFerren. “Now, I sense like an artist. I am proud of my art. In the studio, I am mixing glazes, running kiln fires and helping other learners.”