From Netflix, PBS, Discovery, The History Channel, and more, film professor Chris Jenkins brings his professional documentary experience to the classroom to teach students the art of film production. The poplular, two-term course Crew Production teaches pitching, networking, and all that goes into workting with a production team.

Ian Kellett, a UC Santa Barbara professor co-leads the Coastal Media Project. It’s a nine-week, 12-credit intensive summer course focused on environmental media production and documentary studies, offered through UCSB’s Carsey-Wolf Center. It combines a passion for film with environmentalism as students adventure through nature, telling meaningful stories.

In an interview, UCSB Writing Program faculty member Craig Cotich discusses his new course, "Writing for Change." Cotich designed the course to teach strategies to help students overcome resistance to change with a curriculum that encourages creativity. Cotich's teaching style incorporates storytelling and hand-drawn illustrations to engage students. The course, open to upper-division students, aims to improve writing skills and prepare students to manage both personal and societal change.

Allen Schultz, a Writing and Literature major specializing in film and screenwriting at UC Santa Barbara, took on the job of production manager in the student-produced film, “Overture". In this interview, he delves into the logistics of creating a student-made film about a young boy, who is both blind and deaf, overcome by his love for music as he experiences the vibrations of sound. Allen also discusses his rewarding role as director in his own short film “Disposable,” a story about life as a UCSB student and Jewish identity.

UC Santa Barbara Germanic and Slavic Studies professor Fabian Offert teaches a course called “Critical AI.“ Offered through the Comparative Literature department, he explores and critiques artificial intelligence’s current abilities with his students, which puts potential threats in perspective.

Meagan Carter, a Ph.D. candidate at UC Santa Barbara’s Department of Spanish and Portuguese, developed and taught a course during Summer 2023 that takes on translation and interpreting as professional field, the evolving technologies in use, and ongoing research into what happens in the mind while a professional is at work.

Writing Program lecturer Christian Thomas recently developed UCSB’s first interactive, choose-your-own-adventure game for an undergraduate writing course. The game responds to the player’s choices, and exposes students to Rome’s rich history of art and archaeology,

Shu-Chuan Chen’s, Professor in UCSB’s Department of East Asian Language and Cultural Studies, Chinese class offers students an immersive experience into Chinese culture. From hands-on cooking classes, New Years tea celebrations, and honoring the Lantern Festival, Chen’s class is praised by students for her ability to craft an informative yet engaging course. In this article, Chen sits with Isabella Genovese to talk about her teaching, life, and hopes .

Diarmid Flatley, a Ph.D. candidate enrolled in UCSB’s Media Arts and Technology Program, discussed artificial intelligence and his work with “transmodal” arts in an interview with Environmental Studies major Lucian Scher.

What if you could forget anything you wanted to? To make all your worries and regrets dissipate into nothingness. Would you take the opportunity?

That’s the premise of fourth-year film student Noah Freeman Hecht’s newest short film, Forget Me Again, produced through UC Santa Barbara Film and Media Studies department’s Crew Production course — which he has taken four times in his college career.

Fast fashion is a major contributor to climate change, to research taught in a class called “Climate Crisis 101,” taught by UC Santa Barbara English professor Ken Hiltner.

Olivia Candelaria is one of many UCSB students taking matters into their own hands by thrifting second-hand clothing instead of giving into fast fashion trends. Hiltner’s “Climate Crisis 101” course provides students with concrete, information about the current state of the climate crisis and what can be done to mitigate it, Calendaria writes.

Eighteen students spent over 40 hours on two paintings during a summer course with Yumiko Glover, a visiting lecturer in UC Santa Barbara’s Art Department. But the long hours motivated them, knowing that their work would be on display in the Glass Box Gallery in the Fall. The exhibit ran for five days last week.

Ryan Greenberg’s beautiful ode to his aunt Leith Harmon discusses the optics behind cryptocurrency, family bonding during a pandemic, and shifting careers.

Determined to include the arts in the future of STEM, third year UC Santa Barbara biology student Emily Nguyen incorporated technology and science with artistic expression in UCSB’s Art , Science and Technology course. She used her creativity in a project ,The Dexcavator, and in another which has taught her how to collect data from local beaches and apply it to the science behind ocean acidification.

For many students the names Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonius Monk and Chet Baker are just random names. That changes quickly for those, like anthropology student Jennifer Yoshikoshi, who take the course “Listening to Jazz,” taught by Jon Nathan in UC Santa Barbara’s Music Department. She describes how this course deepened her knowledge of music and music history.

The student dancers of UC Santa Barbara’s Theater and Dance Department have stepped back in the studios with modern dance teacher Christina Sanchez,adapting class structures to incorporate COVID-19 safety precautions and protocols. Read how she does it and watch a video by student Morgen Allen to get a glimpse into the dancer experience and hear Sanchez’s insights on teaching dance in the midst of a global pandemic.

UCSB professor Stephanie Hom is applying her research background in Italian colonialism to probe how the experience of Blackness is translated in literature. In a recent virtual interview, Hom discussed her new course, The Art of Translation, in the Department of French and Italian, and how language and translation can be used to evaluate complex cultural issues.

UCSB Professor and internationally-renowned data visualization artist George Legrady recently sat down for an interview to discuss how remote placement has affected the data visualization course he is offering in the Winter.

Thanks to UC Santa Barbara’s Creative Computing Initiative, graduate student Kevin Whitesides incorporated hands-on multimedia projects in his Linguistics course Memes: When Language and Culture Go Viral . Donor Ross Dowd ‘94, has provided funds for Humanities and Fine Arts instructors and students to apply computer technology and digital tools to their areas of study.

This summer, the Carsey-Wolf Center and the Department of Film and Media Studies collaborate to create a new screenwriting course for students, Advanced Television Writing. The course will be broken up into two sections and will take place over the span of six weeks. The course aims to teach students how to create both a television script bible and a pilot screenplay.

Intern Noe Padilla sat down with the director of the Carsey-Wolf Center, Patrice Petro, to get a better understanding of the course.

Second year psychological and brain sciences major Eddie Lo delves into an engaging experimental course called “Memory: an Interdisciplinary Exploration.“

Saige Heitman delves into the benefits of studying both the sciences and the humanities through the lens of an innovative course taught by neuroscience professor Kenneth Kosik, and English professor Sowon Park, called “Literature and the Human Mind.“ This interdisciplinary course stresses the importance of both subjects, and how they can complement each other.

Jesse Miller, a postdoctoral fellow of English and medical humanities at UCSB, is teaching an English course this spring called U.S. Cultures of Mental Illness. In a recent interview, Miller discussed his goals in designing the course and its relevance in the current social climate that has resulted from the coronavirus pandemic.

This spring, UCSB English lecturer Brian Donnelly is teaching a course on dystopian fiction with themes that apply to the conditions students face during the COVID-19 crisis. In a recent Zoom interview, he said his initial apprehension proved unfounded as the course created a place for students to creatively engage with this time in their lives.

Originally a literary arts magazine club, The Catalyst magazine now offers a four-unit course at UCSB, providing creative collaboration as a means to fulfill the unit requirement.  UC Santa Barbara undergraduate student Renee Whalen delves into how mixing poetry and art in this course changed her relationship with writing.

The Professional Writing Minor at UC Santa Barbara.held its annual information session last week, marking a pivotal moment for its applicants: It’s time to start preparing to apply for the coming year. The Minor has launched a new Journalism track, and now offers students a choice of six distinct areas of professional focus. The other tracks are: Business Communication, Civic Engagement, Multimedia Communication, Professional Editing, and Science Communication. Read more about this popular program here.