How to hire School of Visual Art & Design students
Thank you for your inquiry about paid and volunteer opportunities for our students in the School of Visual Art and Design at the University of South Carolina. Because our students do great work, we receive a large number of requests for them to provide art and design services. Please fill out all of the fields in the SVAD Student Job Request Form at the bottom of this page.
If your posting is for a job or internship, we will reply with information about how to list it in Handshake, the University’s online career management platform. If your posting is for a one-time ‘gig’ – not a true job or internship – it will be shared with the appropriate group of students via email or social media.
If students are interested in your opportunity, they will contact you directly, and any agreements made are between the student and the client. Neither the University of South Carolina nor faculty in the School of Visual Art and Design will be involved with, or responsible for, the proposed project.
Please keep in mind the following:
We encourage our student freelancers to agree to fees before work, either an hourly rate or a flat rate that pays half up front as a retainer of services, and half upon completion of the work.
Rates should be negotiated with the freelancer. All agreements about terms and fulfillment of payment are between you and the freelancer.
Freelance workers have to use their own personal equipment, or equipment that is rented with the budget of the project. University equipment, owned by the State of South Carolina (cameras, sound recording gear, lights, computers, software) may not be used under any circumstances for non-University business, and gear for media production is strictly limited to course work. Using state-purchased equipment to avoid paying for equipment rental or hiring professionals is unlawful and unethical. Incidents violating this policy will be reported.
Freelance work pursued by students is professional work, as is the work of local businesses, studios, and freelancers who are graduates of our programs. We agree with and follow the positions of the AIGA and other professional media organizations regarding jobs that devalue our professions and undercut local businesses, and typically we will not forward those requests.
This includes: speculative work, pro bono and volunteer work, work “for exposure,” competitions that generate and exhibit uncompensated intellectual property, or work for equity.
Faculty are frequently asked if volunteer art and media projects can be made part of a class syllabus. These types of projects are rarely used for class assignments, as faculty carefully plan coursework to meet the learning outcomes of a course well in advance.
SVAD Student Job Request Form
Please complete all of the fields with the appropriate responses.