One of the things that we insist our students do is to begin to build a brand for themselves. This starts by figuring out what people should call you and how you'd like to visually appear.
A consistent name and a headshot that looks like you is simple enough, but it's a hard slog when communicating this to our first semester students. Using a consistent name and having a representative photo helps do many things University-side, including letting your peers and instructors get to know you better... which are good things.
The below was drafted by EAP-superstars Hilaire and Monica. If you haven't done this — please do it now... and update your photo at the same time.
Updating your headshot in the LMS
Please ensure your headshot (portrait) is a clear and easy-to-recognize representation of yourself. Your face should take up about 75% of the frame and be free of any extraneous visual noise (hoodies, hats, sunglasses, etc.). Think of it like a passport photo or an ID-photo. There are many places to be creative in art-school. This is not one of them.
[Which person is more identifiable? The left one, correct.]
Updating your bio in the LMSPlease ensure your information in the LMS is correct (email, etc.) and please ensure you include something in the bio (biography). It can be simple like: "Hi, You can call me Al. I'm from Santa Barbara." or a bit more lengthy. If you do have a nickname, this is a great place to reinforce that. In general: Name + hometown are a good place to start
Updating your name in the LMSPlease update your name on the LMS to reflect a nickname or preferred name if you have one. Do not replace your given name entirely, but add your nickname in parenthesis. (If you do not have a nickname, this does not apply to you.)
For example:
Alison Jones --> Alison (Al) Jones
Yi Ting Huang --> Yi Ting (Mika) Huang
Why do this?
- No name consistency = No name recognition. When you go out and look for a job, you want people to remember your name and connect it to the work that you do. If the name that you introduce yourself as is different from the name on your portfolio, it will be very confusing. People will not spend the time or effort to try to figure out who you are, nor should they have to.
- It helps your teachers. Some of your teachers might have over 100 students per semester. That's already a lot of names to become familiar with. If students go by different names, that increases the number of names your teachers have to remember and match with each other. By using a consistent name, it is also less likely that your grade or critique will get mixed up with another student.
- It helps your classmates. You are often in critique groups of 3 or 4 or more. You don't want to get the wrong critique, do you?
How can you do this?
- Go to the Portal in the LMS
- Click on Student Self Service
- Login to the SSS with your LMS user name and password
- Click on "Personal Information"
- Click on "Names"
- Edit your "Preferred Name"
- Click "Save"
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