Overview
The Communications and New Media Technologies concentration moves beyond training for traditional jobs in broadcasting and film to drive students towards a world of online digital content. Writing and producing content for new media platforms are becoming essential ingredients for todayʻs communication strategies. The concentration provides a hands-on approach where skills are learned by doing. There is a dual emphasis on interpersonal and mass communication, in a variety of subject areas, including new media technology, social media research and marketing, interpersonal development in mediated environments and content production for up and coming media platforms.
Students will gain a variety of communication, computer, and graphic design skills, preparing them for careers in management, advertising, media, communications, public relations and more.
Careers and Earning Potential
In Hawaiʻi the creative sector supports a wide spectrum of commercial businesses, individuals, cultural enterprises and non-profit institutions. Creative enterprises produce, directly or indirectly, a range of goods services that are the product of artistry, design, aesthetic value or cultural enterprise.
For more information on careers and earning potential, visit the Hawaiʻi Career Explorer website.
Equipment Requirements
Laptop
All students entering the Creative Media program at the UH West Oʻahu are required to own or have access to a laptop or computer because computer technology is integral to the learning process and to professional performance in visual communication and media production. Access to a personal laptop/computer provides students with a powerful learning and production tool that can be integrated into both the classroom and the production studio. It also affords the flexibility to permit students to continue working on deadline-driven projects at home and the portability for production use in the field.
Minimum Recommendations:
Mac
- Operating System: Mac OS X 10.15 (Catalina) or higher
- Processor: Intel 6th Gen or newer CPU (or Apple silicon M1 or newer)
- Computer Memory: 8 GB of RAM minimum, 16 GB or more recommended
- (For Adobe Premiere Pro Users)
- For Intel laptops: 2GB of GPU memory minimum, 4GB or more GPU memory recommended.
- For Apple Silicon laptops: 8GB of unified memory minimum, 16GB of unified memory recommended
Windows PC
- Operating System: Windows 10 or later
- Processor:
- For Intel chipsets: Intel 6th gen or newer CPU (Intel 7th Gen or newer recommended)
- For AMD chipsets: AMD Ryzen 1000 Series minimum (AMD Ryzen 3000 series or newer recommended)
- Computer Memory: 8 GB of RAM minimum, 16 GB or more recommended
- (For Adobe Premiere Pro Users)
Camera
Specifications
A DSLR (digital single-lens reflex) is a digital camera that has interchangeable lenses and full manual control of aperture, shutter speed, depth of field and focus functions. The required DSLR camera should meet the following criteria:
- Full manual control of aperture, shutter speed, focus and flash
- Minimum of 18-24 megapixels
- Maximum ISO at least 1600, preferably 3200 or 6400
- Capability for interchangeable lenses
- Manual and Automatic exposure controls and focus
- Video capability
- Audio capability (minimum 8-inch mic jack)
- Instruction manual
- *Headphone jack desired
Recommended Camera Accessories
- Photo tripod (about $20)
- Memory card 32 Gb (SDXC) class 10 U3 rating minimum, preferred 64 GB (SDXC) class 10 U3 rating
Hard Drive
HDD (Hard Drive Disk)
An HDD ( Hard Drive Disk) is an enclosure that contains a series of platters covered by a ferromagnetic coating. The direction of the magnetization represents the individual bits. Data is read and written by a head (similar to the way vinyl record albums work) that moves extremely fast from one area of the disk to another. Since all of these pieces are “mechanical,” the hard disk is the slowest component of any computer – and the most fragile.
- HDD that is powered (Has a plug that plugs into an outlet).
- USB 3.0 (At Least)
- USB-C is the best but out computers do not support it yet and you will need to get an adapter (USB-C to USB-A adapter) for it to work on the Lab or Edit Bay computers.
- 7200rpm (Recommended). Anything lower than 7200rpm will result in slower read and write speeds.
- Minimum Storage Size: 1TB
OR
SSD (Solid State Drive) (preferred)
- SSDs access information instantaneously, as they don’t have any moving parts – 4 times faster than an HDD, while HDD runs at moderately slow speeds with its mechanical moving parts limitation.
- Connector: USB-C
- Minimum Storage Size: 1TB
For questions about equipment requirements, please contact uhwoacm@hawaii.edu.
HOW TO FORMAT YOUR DRIVE ON A MAC
Room and Equipment Reservations
Students may need specialized equipment to complete coursework. To borrow equipment or reserve an ACM room, please visit the ACMWO Reservations webpage.
