Summer arts courses offer students a bonus season to earn valuable credits, expand their horizons, and, in some cases, discover deeply personal stories.

Raleigh Savage usually spends her semesters investigating the inner workings of the human brain — studying concepts such as neurons, axons and dendrites, with little time to learn about much else.

But in her final summer at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, the neurobiology major is branching out into arts-elective Art 448: Screen Printing. The course is one of 25 offered by the UW Art Department during the summer term, giving both art majors and non-arts students greater flexibility to complete coursework.

For one month, Savage — along with seven other students — is earning two credits learning how to hand-press images, colors and designs together into screenprints. She says she initially chose to take the course to try fields outside of her STEM norm, and to return to her performing arts high school roots.

“I really missed being around art and people who like to do art,” Savage says.

Savage also wanted to use extra summer time to explore topics beyond neurobiology. According to course instructor Christie Tirado, a recent UW MFA graduate herself, that’s part of the reason why she builds the summer curriculum with varying majors, interests and abilities in mind — encouraging students to bring their own unique interests into the classroom.

“That’s the nice thing — it’s a special topics [class], so it allows for students that are non-art majors to come in and actually be able to create with screen printing,” Tirado says. “It’s structured more on what they are coming in with, [and then] engaging off of that.”

A metalsmith gets a head start on fall

Coming into the summer, Maddie Waggoner  — a rising senior and D1 swimmer — had already taken ceramics, painting and drawing courses, but still needed a 3D-art class to complete her Art, B.S. degree requisites. She likes summer classes for their small class sizes and more one-on-one time with course instructors, and decided to enroll in Art 448: Ringmaking.