Creative people don’t want to don a tie or heels every day to sit at ordinary desk in a collection of similar desks with phones ringing. A degree from The Art Institute of Pittsburgh - Online Division can help you lose the suit and build a solid foundation while working in a job you love, wherever that job might be located. The Art Institute of Pittsburgh - Online Division offers degrees that can help you build a career in fashion retail management, game design, photography and more. If you want a career that fulfills your need to create, then choose a school and major that can help you achieve those goals.

Game Design
According to Game Developer Magazine April 2011 issue, game designers earn an average annual salary of $70,223. The Art Institute of Pittsburgh’s online degree program can boost your core design skills, while keeping you abreast of the latest advancements. Students have the potential to learn how to create backgrounds, characters and environments as well as learn coding, programming, productions and artistic concepts. This degree is the right one for you if you love playing video games and want to learn how to make them.

Interior Design
If you can’t get enough of TV shows like “Flip That House” or “Design on a Dime” and love the concept of changing an awkward space into something pleasing to the eye, an interior design degree from The Art Institute of Pittsburgh - Online Division can help you turn your passion into a career. The Art Institute of Pittsburgh’s online program covers computer-aided drafting and design, 3-D design, space planning, problem solving and the history of design and architecture. Successful completion also prepares students for less known areas of interior design like exhibit design, hospitality design, retail store design and corporate design. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Outlook Handbook, interior designers earned a median annual wage of $46,280 in 2010.

Photography
Fascinated by pictures and want to turn photography into a career? The Art Institute of Pittsburgh - Online Division offers several photography degrees, including an associate’s, bachelor’s and three certificates in studio, portrait, and digital photography. The degrees cover camera operations, light techniques, and business aspects of a photography career. The pay for a photographer depends on the employer or whether the photographer started a business.

Fashion & Retail Management
There’s more to fashion than just pretty clothes. It takes skill and a whole mess of retail outlets to get the product to the market. This degree focuses on the whole package. Student have the potential to learn color theory, fashion history, sales techniques, inventory control, merchandising, product creation and employee management.

Web Design
Web design is hot right now. Businesses realize that the next generation grew up with computers and expect businesses to have a web presence. This online degree takes about four years to complete and develops a deep understanding of web design, animation, programing, website development, and image creation. The degree prepares students for a broad spectrum of careers including website designer and graphic designer. Ultimately, pay depends on the student’s career choice.

Media Arts & Animation
If you enjoy creating a story through images or words and love computers, a degree in media arts will join your passions into a cohesive career. The Art Institute of Pittsburgh - Online Division’s four year degree allows students to learn about the arts in a variety of forms including text, video and animation. The online program prepares students for careers as special effects artists, texture artists, and computer modelers. Students will work with software programs, including Adobe Photoshop.

Online education can be the ultimate way to achieve your goal of an artistic career from the comfort of your home. Have an idea of what degree interests you most? Contact one of our knowledgeable Admissions Representatives today!

In essence, volunteering gives credence to two famous sayings; the best things in life are free and that it is more blessed to give than to receive. Volunteering exceeds doing a noble deed; it is a platform for many invaluable interactions. Not only do you utilize your free time, but it is also an avenue to explore new talents and interests. Volunteering is selfless and does not have monetary gain but its benefits are intangible and far more than anything money can buy. The Art Institute of Pittsburgh -Online Division encourages its students to be involved in volunteer work because of the social skills and networking opportunities it offers.

Surprising Benefits of Volunteering

You reap maximum benefits for volunteering when you match the opportunities with what you can offer as a unique service. This not only helps you to hone your skills but also has social and health benefits. The main benefits of volunteer work include:

• Creating networks- it is said that volunteers are the strongest links in any community; they hold it together. By volunteering, you help change the community to be a better one. By volunteering, you make new friends amongst those you help and those that you work with. It is also a good way to penetrate a new community and increase your support network. By default, you get to socialize with people and hence develop invaluable social skills that might be useful in your career pursuit at The Art Institute of Pittsburgh - Online Division.
• Personal development- volunteering has mental and physical health benefits which include improved self confidence, physical health and spiritual well-being. Doing good for other people gives one a feeling of self accomplishment, pride and a positive attitude.
• Career advancement- volunteering can also be an opportunity to align yourself with people in your field of interest. It is more likely to make a favorable first impression during such activities than on a formal lunch or dinner meeting from prospective employers. It is an avenue for improving social skills and builds on teamwork for members of the same workplace and serves as an excellent avenue for team building. In addition, you can gain experience from such work.
• Fulfilling and fun- when you match your interests and hobbies with the volunteer.
opportunity, you stand to have a lot of fun and get more fulfilled. Furthermore, it is a way to break away from routine. For example, an art enthusiast can offer their services to an art gallery as a tour guide. This may improve their knowledge on art history and art in general beyond any material available in a classroom.

The Art Institute of Pittsburgh - Online Division encourages its students to be involved with volunteer work to give back to the community and receive infinite immeasurable rewards.

Armed with your newly-earned degree, you're ready to explore the job market. You’re confident you have the skills to fill the position you’ve always wanted. While confidence is undoubtedly important, how you present yourself during the interview and beyond can have a big impact on how you are perceived. In order to put your best foot forward, take a look at some of our tips for dressing to impress.

• For the Interview –Even if you know that the company dress code is casual, it’s better to overdress for the interview than to under dress. Wearing a suit is always a good way to go, with solid colors in navy, black, or gray. Avoid wearing too much jewelry, cologne or perfume. For women, light makeup and conservative shoes are ideal. Men should wear a long-sleeved shirt and both should keep their hairstyles neat and professional.
• Dress for the Job You Want – If your goal is to advance your position at your current company, your new degree will help, but you may also need to upgrade your appearance. An excellent illustration of this can be found in The Wall Street Journal’s article “How to Look and Act Like a Leader.” It includes a before and after photograph of a vice president at Sara Lee who cleaned up her appearance to help advance her career.
• Observe Those Around You – It can often be helpful, when deciding how to dress for the office, to look at your coworkers. How do those superior to you in the company dress? Taking cues from them can help you ensure that your appearance fits the company culture.

When dressing for the office, professionalism should always be foremost in your mind. While who are at work isn’t just what we look like, it does play an important role in the overall picture.

In honor of Women’s History Month, we’re highlighting some of the pioneers in creative fields, today we’re looking at some groundbreaking female photographers.

Annie Liebovitz

No list like this could start without mentioning Annie Leibovitz. For more than 4 decades, Leibovitz has been at the forefront of Photography and she is widely considered one of the world’s foremost Portrait Photographers.

Her start came in the early 1970’s with Rolling Stone magazine, where she was made Chief Photographer at the age of 23, a title she would hold for the next decade.

It was at Rolling Stone that:

“Leibovitz developed her trademark technique, which involved the use of bold primary colors and surprising poses.”

In later years, Liebovitz would go on to earn greater fame and popularity at Vanity Fair magazine and eventually through self publishing her own work, including her widely acclaimed book:

“Annie Leibovitz published the book Women (1999), which was accompanied by an essay by friend and novelist Susan Sontag. With its title subject matter, Leibovitz presented an array of female images from Supreme Court Justices to Vegas showgirls to coal miners and farmers. Currently, many of her original prints are housed in various galleries throughout the United States.”

Dorothea Lange

Dorothea Lange was a documentary Photographer and Photojournalist who gained great notoriety during the Great Depression for her portraits of migrant workers and the conditions they lived in.

Her work is considered among the first of the Documentary Photography genre and it helped raise awareness of what people were going through during the Depression. According to a Biography channel profile of her:

“During the Great Depression, Lange began to photograph the unemployed men who wandered the streets of San Francisco. Pictures such as White Angel Breadline (1932), showing the desperate condition of these men, were publicly exhibited and received immediate recognition both from the public and from other photographers.”

Lange would go on to continue to document the struggles of everyday people through photography, and in the year after her death in 1965, her life and work was paid tribute with a retrospective show at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.

These are but just two of the trailblazing female photographers who have contributed so much to our view of the world, we invite you to learn more about some of them in this Biography Channel special, or in another post at Bright Hub.

Do you share their passion for Photography? You might want to explore the Photography programs at The Art Institute of Pittsburgh – Online Division.

See www.AiPrograms.info for program duration, tuition, fees, other costs, median debt, federal salary data, alumni success, and other important info.

You're completely excited to begin applying for jobs in your chosen career field. You just know that you’re the right person for the job, and surely anyone who receives your job application will know this too, right?

Wrong. Unless you’re close friends with the hiring manager, you need to do what you can to ensure that your application enables you to put your best foot forward. To that end, we’ve compiled a list of four job application blunders to avoid:

• Having an Unprofessional Email Address – Your name is Lawrence, but your friends have always called you “Smilin’ Larry,” prompting you, years ago, to adopt the email address smilinlarry@your-domain-here.com. Before you send in your job application with this email address attached, stop and think for a moment. Would it be considered professional? If you didn’t know the person attached to the email address, would you take them seriously? The answer to both questions should be a resounding “no.” So what should you do instead? Generally, it’s best for your email address to only include your first and last name before the @ sign, and a number or two if needed, so smilinlarry@your-domain-here.com becomes lawrencejohnson@your-domain-here.com.
• Ignoring Typos and Spelling Mistakes - In order to avoid sending in a job application with these errors, proofread it carefully. On top of that, you might also find it helpful to have a friend or two give it a read as well. As they say, two pairs of eyes are better than one!
• Stuffing Your Application With Buzz Words – If you want your job application to stand out, it’s helpful to include as many action words as possible, but it’s best to avoid common application buzz words that everyone and your brother is probably also using. These are generally meaningless words and phrases like “team player,” “proven track record,” and “results-oriented.” When in doubt, show, don’t tell.
• Submitting an Incomplete Application – Before submitting your application, make sure that you’ve followed the potential employer’s directions carefully. No matter how much care you’ve put into presenting yourself well, it will all fall flat if you fail to provide the complete package of information requested.