Portfolio Requirements: What is a Portfolio?

Students who are not doing a thesis must complete a portfolio, which will entail a minimum of three projects done during the master’s program. The portfolio will comprise:

• 12 (or more) spreads (24 pages), with appropriate citation of work, titles and captions,
• Approximately 100 words explaining the work.
• An 8.5X11 format and single, sans sarif font are recommended.

Students pursuing this option should sign up for the  3 credit Portfolio class (ARC 697) in the Fall or Spring semester, and complete the portfolio in the class as your “culminating experience.” This portfolio would be signed off by your course instructor, or another Portfolio faculty.

Note: Previous UB undergraduate students who have already taken the Portfolio course (ARC 498) during their undergraduate studies may waive the course and substitute the class for a 3 credit elective. However, students must still submit their final graduate portfolio for approval to the department before graduation. Note that waiving the portfolio course does not decrease the 64 graduate credits required for graduation. In Fall 2019, ARC 490 (Special Topics) will count toward toward the Graduate Portfolio class. 

Scope:

• Graduate-level work mandatory (undergraduate work, optional)
• 3 graduate-level projects minimum (at least 1 must be GRG/Option studio)
• 12 spreads (24 pages) recommended

Content:

• Approximately 100 word abstract required for all projects (own words, reflexive)
• Front matter standardized (personal info, table of contents, etc)
• Suggested font sizes (10 pt main, 8pt caption, title/sub-title varied)
• Single font (bold and italic to be used as necessary)
• 8.5x11 preferred (good for digital and print media)
  • Portrait format is more flexible (single pages and spreads)

Student who have applied to graduate (and are using Portfolio as their culminating experience) will be contacted by the department to submit their portfolio to UB Box dropbox during their final semester in the program. Once the document has been accepted by the faculty doing the review, the student will have their culminating experience marked as successfully completed in their Academic Advising Report before conferral.