VC Social

When asking students around the VC Art department what professor has had the most impact on their education, it all points towards one direction. This professor has a great way of teaching his students because he takes his time with everyone individually to help improve their art. He provides useful critique as well as demonstrates how easy it can be to draw certain things that many people find themselves struggling with, like a foot or a weird angle of something.

Introducing David Young

To those who may not recognize him, David Young is one of the art professors who has given his students useful advice when they are looking to improve their art.

David has over 40 years of drawing experience, and he has had several jobs involving art since he was 16 years old, like sketching caricatures at Six Flags for 4 years. He studied at Trinity University, receiving a Bachelor’s in Art and Math at age 21, for which he would get an illustration job after his degree. He worked at this job for two years, and he quickly realized he didn’t like the people working around him; the job itself wasn’t challenging, which ultimately made him bored. This motivated him to go back to school for his master’s, and he landed at Georgia University for free.

He studied Italian for 6 years, which allowed him to travel abroad for a summer and teach in Italy for a year. He would go backpacking across Europe, paired with his school, and would return home once his money ran out. He taught at the University of Tennessee for 10 years and moved to New York to teach there part-time. When he married, he had his first child, and he decided it was time for him to get a full-time job, which he landed by teaching at Ventura College. 

Working at Ventura College as a professor has not only allowed him to spend time with his children during the holidays but has also given him the opportunity to impact the future of students who are looking to pursue art as a career. Students who have had him as a professor would say that he gives honest critiques about their work, and David will then demonstrate what improvements are needed. Honesty in art can be a great way for many students to grow, especially when told why and how they can improve their skills.

Want to learn more about the Art Department at Ventura College and its various pathways? Click the link below:

https://www.venturacollege.edu/departments/academic/art

Another semester at Ventura College is coming to an end, and I’m so proud of how far the Social Media Marketing program students have come. This is now just the third time that I’ve taught the Digital Content Marketing class, BUS V52, and the VC Social brand has evolved so much in the past couple of years.

The first time I taught this class was in Fall 2021, in the midst of the pandemic. There were only 11 students in the class, and when we met, we were all wearing face masks. The second time was last year in Spring 2022, and that course was fully online with 12 students.

This semester, we’ve been back in-person again, without masks (hooray!), with a classroom filled with 24 students. Considering the nature of this course, I’ve had to adapt and make some significant changes in order to keep up with the number of students compared to previous semesters. For example, I’ve had to give up some control over the social media profiles and draft vs. publish status of posts on the website, needing to trust that the students will follow the Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics we studied in week 1. As you can imagine, this was a bit nerve-racking, as the blog and social media profiles are public. And I have to give it up to the students, they handled this responsibility with respect and professionalism. Not that I’m surprised.

Perhaps the biggest change I made, though, was giving control of the final project to the students. Rather than assigning a topic and making rules about groups, we agreed collectively to let the students decide what type of content they wanted to create and with whom. Some students decided to work in groups, while others opted to go solo. Content ranged from reviewing local businesses to showcasing artistic skills, with a variety of multimedia created for the blog, Instagram profile, and YouTube and podcast channels. From a quality standpoint, I didn’t micromanage, but instead asked students to push their boundaries and create something they could be proud of five years from now. This led to some incredible articles, graphics, videos and more.

I could ramble on about this semester forever, but since I know the students reading this are waiting for their prompt to reply to, I’ll bring this to a close by saying that I think Spring 2023 has been a huge success, and while I know I have a lot of work to do to continue making this class and program of value to the community, I believe this cohort of students is so incredibly talented and will go on to do great things in life. I only hope to be able to keep in touch with them over the years so I can continue celebrating their achievements. 

Now here’s the question that I’d like students to answer in the comments section…

What is the one thing you learned from that class that you’ll take with you to the next stage of your career and/or education?