Story by: Kristin Watson, class of 2019, Caroline Schoenberger, class of 2020, and Jorgine Vick, class of 2020
Gamma Epsilon Tau just wrapped up the fifth Adobe workshop that we have planned, lead, an executed.
Gamma Epsilon Tau (GET) is partnered with the Adobe Education team and members are Adobe Ambassadors. As Adobe Ambassadors, we are a part of the Creative Cloud Network (CCN). This network is comprised of roughly 80 schools across the U.S. Our main goal as part of the Creative Club Network is to get students using Adobe Creative Cloud (CC) by providing space to do so via workshops.
I came across the opportunity on LinkedIn and had not heard of such an established network, so I did some digging. A few phone calls later with leaders of the network, and members of GET were officially Adobe Ambassadors. I then reached out to some peers in ClemsonGC about forming a lead team of ambassadors that would plan, promote, and lead the workshops – and that is where the team formed. We saw this as an opportunity to get our name more widely recognized on campus, and a way to make connections with other organizations, as well as the Adobe Education Team. I wasn’t sure the impact this would have, but I can say that our team’s work has more than paid off.
Our three workshops last semester were great indicators for what we would be able to provide for students in the future. After hosting our first workshop by ourselves in Spring 2018, we quickly pulled in guests to help us entice more participation and expand our reach. We had Nik Conklin, Director of Creative Solutions for Clemson Athletics, come teach a workshop on Premiere Pro and the students loved it. This was the first workshop where we hosted a wide range of majors in attendance. This has been one of our primary goals this semester – to pull in students from majors that aren’t taking advantage of our free access to CC.
Going into this semester, we explored opportunities for further growth we had not yet tapped into, and that was collaborating with other organizations on campus. We knew that if we could partner with student organizations, we could tailor to the specific creative needs of their members and provide extremely valuable experience. Both workshops we conducted this semester were in partnership with organizations and/or professors and courses. This technique proved to be beneficial to us and the student groups in partnership.
Our first workshop of the fall semester was in partnership with professional business fraternity, Delta Sigma Pi and professional engineering fraternity, Theta Tau, and it covered the basics for Illustrator, Photoshop, and InDesign. This was our first workshop in partnership with another student organization, and we were also trying something new by covering so many applications. We rented out a room in the Watt Center and started planning to make sure that this workshop was useful for all students in attendance.
Our second workshop covered Adobe XD. This was a big one for us, especially in the planning. Adobe chose us as one of the few students groups to put on an XD workshop to promote the application. This entailed multiple phone calls with Tara Knight from the XD Team. Through much discussion at team meetings and our conversations with Tara, we decided that the best way to introduce students to XD and give them time to also use the application would be to do a team challenge. The workshop broke down like so…
- Tara video called in and gave a preview of XD use cases.
- Dr. Erica Walker attended as a guest lecturer and outlined XD tips and tricks.
- Students divided into groups of two or three to complete the challenge.
- The challenge: create two landing pages.
The biggest challenge for us in planning this workshop was the time. We wanted to make sure that students had an introduction to XD, and that they also had enough time to really create something by applying the tips and tricks they learned.
Overall, we had a hugely successful semester, not just because of our workshop attendance going from 15 students to 35+ students, but because of the partnerships created, relationships formed, and students in attendance that are eager to gain a creative edge. We are excited moving forward to keep encouraging creativity and promote the learning of these great tools.
