Engaged Students

CCA’s distinctive approach to education -- “make art that matters” -- means that important issues such as sustainability, social justice, and entrepreneurship are integrated throughout the curriculum. The college’s founders believed that connecting the arts to economic, political, and social life would deepen the power of creative work while making a positive contribution to the community.

Students have numerous opportunities to engage with local and global communities. The college is committed to project-based learning, which is built on the idea that people learn best in the context of real-world problems and situations.

ENGAGE at CCA, one of CCA’s signature initiatives, is a family of courses open to students in any major. The students in each ENGAGE course work with a faculty leader, outside experts, and established firms and community organizations to seek solutions to particular, identified issues.

Another initiative is the IMPACT Social Entrepreneurship Awards. Multiple $10,000 awards are given each year to interdisciplinary teams of students, enabling them to undertake a major project over the summer, anywhere in the world.

The college also offers Kinetic Micro Grants of up to $500 to students who wish to launch small-scale creative projects with members of a local community.

CCA CONNECTS is a structured “externship” experience in which 40 students every year work at outside organizations such as design firms, schools, or architectural offices and make real, substantive contributions to ongoing projects.

CCA also offers all kinds of other internship programs that enable students to gain practical experience and make professional connections while earning academic credit. Internships are required by some majors, and they are encouraged by all of CCA’s programs.

Study-abroad and exchange opportunities expand students’ worldviews and cultural understanding. Participants in the International Exchange Program spend a semester at one of more than 30 colleges of art and design around the globe. Or through the Association of Independent Colleges of Art and Design (AICAD) exchange program, students can spend a semester at one of 32 other art schools in the United States. During the summers there are numerous study-abroad course offerings for undergraduate and graduate students.

Great Teaching

CCA’s faculty includes nearly 500 nationally and internationally recognized artists, architects, designers, and writers. All of them are actively working in the region’s flourishing professional communities in architecture, the arts, design, business, consulting, animation, film, writing, and beyond.

Many of the faculty work for leading Bay Area companies such as Apple, Gensler, Google, LucasArts, and Pixar, or are principals of their own firms. Many of them have won major awards and accolades: Academy Awards, Fulbright fellowships, the Rome Prize, the MacArthur Award (also known as the “Genius Award”), Emmys, Guggenheim fellowships, AIGA medals, and more.

With an average class size of approximately 15 students (and a 10-to-1 student-to-faculty ratio), students get to know their teachers well. Together, they create a supportive community of friends, colleagues, and mentors. Faculty members help students discover their creative passions and individual points of view. They encourage students to take risks, to clarify and deepen their processes of inquiry, and above all to experiment across disciplines. Students are able to take advantage of their teachers’ networks of professional connections, which can lead directly to opportunities after graduation.

An incredible array of distinguished artists, designers, architects, and critics have visited the college, from the film directors Gus Van Sant and John Waters to the architect Renzo Piano and Documenta curator Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev. Their visits may involve public lectures, leading master classes, critiquing student work, and undertaking artist residencies lasting up to several months. These visitors offer access to the international art world, and students benefit greatly from this one-on-one exposure to prominent successful practitioners in their chosen fields.

CCA also hosts symposia that are open to all students and the public. Recent symposia have included Craft Forward, which brought together a diverse group of makers and thinkers to explore the ethos of craft and its resurgence in the 21st century; Hello Etsy, a series of workshops and panels devoted to small businesses and sustainability; and Dutch Design at CCA, a weeklong series of lectures and visits with prominent Dutch designers and architects.

Vibrant Community

First-year students at CCA are immediately immersed in a vibrant artistic community. They take a cross-disciplinary sequence of studio and academic courses, where they are exposed to a variety of media. They explore established areas of interest, discover new ones, and develop into self-motivated creators.

All incoming first-year students have their home base on CCA’s Oakland campus, a traditional college setting that occupies four acres in a residential neighborhood. The Oakland campus is home to the First Year Program and the first-year residence halls. About 80 percent of first-year students live in the residence halls, which host numerous social and educational programs throughout the year, from movie nights and barbecues to museum trips and professional lectures.

Depending on their major, second-year students may stay in Oakland or move their base to the San Francisco campus, which is located in the city’s Design District, home to design firms, high-tech startups, and companies such as Adobe, Twitter, fuseproject, and Zynga. It is also very close to the new biotech and medical research area anchored by UCSF’s Mission Bay campus.

CCA is a locus for important conversations about creative economies and the role of artists, architects, designers, and writers in today’s culture. Almost every evening during the semester there is a lecture or special event.

Exhibitions of international contemporary art and design are regularly presented by the CCA Wattis Institute. These are complemented by a full schedule of student and faculty exhibitions. Public exhibitions of student work rotate weekly in several galleries on both campuses. These shows allow students to connect with their peers and get feedback (beyond classroom critiques) while honing their presentation skills. During their senior year, all fine arts majors have the opportunity to showcase a cohesive body of work in a solo exhibition.

CCA students are active in numerous pre-professional groups such as the American Institute of Architecture Students (AIAS), American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA), Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA), Ceramics Guild, Glass League, and International Interior Design Association (IIDA).

Students are encouraged to join existing clubs and organizations or to form new ones; clubs and activities range in focus from community building to politics to physical fitness. Students may also choose to get involved in student government. The Student Council sponsors a range of activities throughout the year, including all-college dinners, films, exhibition receptions, and shuttles to San Francisco galleries.

Successful Outcomes

CCA students graduate with the specific tools and knowledge to be successful in their chosen field as well as critical thinking skills that will be invaluable in any future pursuit. CCA’s particular emphasis on interdisciplinarity sets it apart from other art schools.

CCA is also distinguished by its many connections with creative industries, thanks in part to its fortuitous location in the San Francisco Bay Area. Major corporations, arts organizations, and nonprofits sponsor academic courses, offer internships to students, and employ alumni.

Students acquire knowledge of how to succeed in the field of their choice through personal contact with faculty members and coursework specifically designed to help in the transition to professional practice. They make further career connections through internships, sponsored studios, and the Alumni/Student Mentorship Program.

CCA’s Career Development Office hosts a Career Expo every year, bringing more than 50 outside firms and organizations to the college to talk to students and discuss their work and interests.They also facilitate industry presentations, career treks, professional development workshops, and more.

CCA’s most recent survey of its alumni revealed that
- 78 percent are actively working in fields related to art, architecture, design, or writing
- 29 percent hold management-level positions in arts-related fields
- 25 percent own their own businesses
- 36 percent remain in the Bay Area to live and work

PayScale, a market leader in global compensation data, recently ranked CCA the top art and design school in the U.S. by salary potential.

CCA alumni have designed graphics for MTV and VH1, created characters for animated films by Pixar, illustrated editorials for influential national magazines, and created Emmy-award winning motion graphics. They have exhibited their work at the Cannes and Sundance film festivals and at major museums around the world.

According to a 2011 study by the National Endowment for the Arts, jobs in the creative sector will increase by 11 percent by 2018, with some careers (curators, landscape architects, interior designers, architects, and writers) projected to grow at an even higher rate. CCA alumni are already intensely active in all of these fields, and their influence and networks continue to expand.