Office of Graduate Admissions
University of Washington
301 Loew Hall, MS 352191
Seattle, WA 98195-2191
To whom it may concern:
In 1994, I came the greater Seattle area to find a job in the booming graphic design industry shortly after I had earned a Bachelor of Arts in Visual Communication & Graphic Design from California State University at Chico in 1993. The industry that I found here in Seattle at that time was ripe for a fresh new face with a design degree and digital pre-press experience. I was fortunate enough to work for a few years in the corporate sector of Seattle for such companies as Nintendo of America and Sierra On-line designing and producing artwork for “Nintendo Power” and “Interaction” Magazine.
By 1997 I founded Premium Design Works to get away from the corporate industry and to find a path that suited my ideology a little better. Starting my own graphic design business allowed me to create logos for small business, design and produce advertising work for non-profit organizations and create collateral for musicians and recording companies. To compete in the new information-age industry, I also found myself learning web design and development along the way as I designed websites for local software and net-casting companies in the late 1990s.
In order to learn even more about the web design industry, I put Premium Design Works on hold in the year 2000 to take a position as a User Interface designer with Drugstore.com. By late 2001 I was then offered a web design instructor position at Seattle Central Community College (SCCC) and was able to pick up my graphic design business once again while focusing on web design and development.
Teaching college level design and development courses while working as an industry professional has been a fulfilling asset to my life and has enabled me to keep my finger on the pulse of the web design and development industry. Our program at SCCC has grown quite rapidly in the last few years and has been an incredible journey to say the least.
As the years have rolled on, I have embraced that teaching at SCCC is what I was meant to do with my life at this time. Although only a part-time instructor, I have been central to the success of our web design and development program. I have not only been one of the core instructors for the program, but have designed and development much of its curriculum while also training and mentoring new instructors.
The classes that I have written and have been teaching most recently include:
- WEB105: Web Design Project Management
- WEB112: Typography
- WEB160: Writing for the Web
- WEB200: The Theory of Web Design
- WEB210: Advanced Web Design Projects
- ITC200: User Experience Design
- ITC298: Web Design & Development with WordPress
- CIS197: Project Internships
Now, I am interested in pursuing the open full-time position with the college, but lack the Master’s degree required. Therefore, I am interested in the Human Centered Design & Engineering (HCDE) graduate program to further my career with SCCC.
I originally heard about the HCDE program at the University of Washington from a former student of mine, Kristina Krause, who needed a letter of recommendation to be accepted to the program. The name of the program certainly piqued my interest and I started to look into the program for myself. I also talked with a few of my friends and former students that had enrolled in the HCDE User-Centered Design (UCD) Certificate Program. What I found was impressive and had a good reputation. In the last year I have been able to take two courses as graduate non-matriculated status in the HCDE program and have enjoyed myself.
My intention is to now officially enroll in the HCDE Professional Master’s Program and complete the User-Centered Design (UCD) pathway. By completing this Master’s degree program in HCDE at the University of Washington, I will be qualified to get the full-time web design and development instructor position at SCCC.
Thank you for your time and consideration.
Sincerely,
Mike Sinkula
13612 14th Ave S
Burien, WA 98168