Art Degrees Online

A first-rate college education is one investment about which you can be confident. Studying at CCA equips you to succeed in today’s complex world—to work collaboratively, think critically, and address creatively the problems of today and tomorrow.

As news of the economic downturn continues, you may be concerned about how you can afford to attend college. Rest assured that CCA will be your partner in meeting your college expenses. We awarded more than $19 million in financial aid last year, and nearly 75 percent of our students receive scholarships every year. Our students also continue to have access to federal student and parent loan programs.

Our generous undergraduate and graduate merit scholarships offer up to full tuition to qualified students. Our diversity scholarship program assists students who bring diverse experiences, ideas, and creative work to our community.

No need exists to complete separate scholarship applications; just submit your admission application by the priority deadline (January 15, 2009, for graduate students; February 1, 2009, for undergraduates), and you are automatically considered for these special scholarship opportunities.

CCA is one of the world’s finest art colleges in one of the world’s greatest cities. Because we are the right college for you, we’ll help you overcome any financial barriers to enrolling. We don’t want cost to be the determining factor in your decision.

We look forward to working with you.

The Illustration Program is designed to develop the strongest possible drawing and painting skills while fostering imaginative, interpretive, and entrepreneurial thinking. Besides employing traditional illustration tools, students are encouraged to build digital expertise.

Our alumni have been featured in major national exhibitions such as those organized by Communication Arts magazine and the Society of Illustrators, and they have gone on to succeed in a variety of genres, including magazines, children’s books, graphic novels, and comic books.

The faculty includes some of Northern California’s most widely respected working illustrators, who bring their experience and enthusiasm for this dynamic field into the studio classroom. Current faculty members have been recognized nationally by American Illustration, the Society of Illustrators, the American Institute of Graphic Arts, and Communication Arts; several have won medals from the New York Art Directors Club. The program also regularly hosts visiting artists.

Illustration students have access to a broad range of college resources, including computer labs equipped with the latest hardware and software, and they are encouraged to enroll in courses in animation, bookbinding, painting, drawing, photography, and printmaking. Seniors have dedicated studio spaces on the San Francisco campus.

The Individualized Major (INDI) at CCA provides an opportunity for students to design and follow a personalized program of study. Students must write and present a proposal (e.g., “What I want to do and why I want to do it”), which must be approved.

Students also must be prepared to demonstrate that they have begun one or more bodies of interdisciplinary work, and that they are motivated and capable of working outside departmental structures.

The INDI major exists specifically for students whose work bridges media and disciplines that fall outside regular program and department structures. Students who are working in two or three closely related areas, such as drawing/printmaking/bookmaking or sculpture/wood/ceramics, do not always need to work within the INDI process. In this case, students are advised to work with departmental or area advisors.

The INDI major is meant to serve students who are truly involved with interdisciplinary or cross-disciplinary work; or conceptually based work that transcends specific media; or who are working in combinations of 2D, 3D, time-based and writing-based forms.

Before applying to the Individualized Major, students should talk to their advisor and discuss the options of pursuing interdisciplinary work within an existing major. For most students working within an existing major is the best choice.

This is an honors program and it is the student’s responsibility to:
design and propose a personal course of study
follow through in a mature self-guided manner
monitor their own progress for graduation

The Photography Program takes a broad-based approach, engaging students in the most contemporary practices, as well as in the traditions and historical structures from which those practices have evolved.

The curriculum provides a technical foundation in analog and digital imaging alike and introduces the critical skills and theoretical insights necessary for students to manifest their creative visions. Our faculty—all professional artists—represents a diverse range of styles and approaches to the medium. Students graduate with the skills necessary to pursue careers as exhibiting artists and to work in most photography-related professions.

The program’s facilities enable work in black-and-white, color, and alternative processes on large and small scales alike. The facilities on the Oakland campus are staffed more than 90 hours a week and include two large black-and-white darkrooms, 12 individual darkrooms for color printing, a 42-inch RA 4 color processor, Photography Program–specific high-end digital workstations, a black-and-white- and color-compatible mural darkroom, an alternative-processes lab, a dedicated lighting studio, and much more.

Cameras and equipment are available to advanced students for off-campus use. Other resources include a gallery for student exhibitions, guest lectures by emerging and high-profile photographers alike, and a visiting-artist program.

Students pursue internships with photography studios, museums, galleries, major newspapers and magazines, and film production companies. Many alumni have become professional photographers, and several have been included in such national exhibitions as the Whitney Biennial. Our graduates typically enter top-tier graduate programs.

CalArts is internationally renowned as one of the leading and most innovative centers for undergraduate and graduate study in the performing and visual arts and in the critical study of these arts. As proud bearers of this tradition of artistic excellence, we are committed to providing the resources and support necessary for our intimate community of students and faculty to stretch and reach beyond themselves and their disciplines to new heights of art making and thinking.

Fine art principles and practices are the essential forces guiding the mission of the Program in Experimental Animation—a course of study designed for independent and adventurous artists who are interested in personal expression and who regard animation as a highly dynamic, ever-evolving art form. This program offers a framework in which students explore, develop and refine intellectually demanding, aesthetically progressive concepts and professional practices in their personal cinematic artmaking.

The curriculum begins by building a foundation understanding of a variety of animation techniques and concepts. Courses in 2-D drawn and direct animation, stop-motion, and 2-D and 3-D computer animation blend practical knowledge with creative stimulation, while animation history courses provide a detailed examination of all forms of animation art—with a special emphasis on the history of experimental forms. Once foundation studies are completed, students work closely with their mentors and other members of the program’s accomplished faculty as they experiment with and extend their own unique artistic visions. At the advanced levels of the curriculum, students chart a more individualized course of study in consultation with their mentors, who help to custom-tailor coursework according to each student’s particular interests.

The Program in Experimental Animation enjoys a long-standing international reputation for excellence in innovative animation production. Its faculty, students and alumni have consistently won top awards at film festivals in the United States, Europe and Asia, and are widely credited with helping to define the art of animation as we know it today.

The Animation Program curriculum explores time-based motion and form, combining traditional character animation with a more experimental, interdisciplinary approach. Students begin the program by studying shifting weight, locomotion, characterization, timing, and emotional expression through traditional drawing and filmmaking courses. They later apply their skills to a wide variety of individual and collaborative cinematic projects, including in-depth character studies, film production, interactive media, motion graphics, narrative storytelling, and video.

The program’s framework is centered on the idea of multiple iterations—designing and creating films frequently and with variety—as opposed to focusing on a single finished piece.

Students benefit from the college’s 20 undergraduate programs in architecture, design, fine arts, and the humanities, which provide an unlimited depth of resources, as well as from collaborative relationships between the Animation Program and several venerable Bay Area institutions. Faculty members are drawn from local animation studios, digital graphics firms, film studios, and advertising firms. Graduates will have completed a wide variety of projects upon graduating from CCA, with a reel of work that will help them succeed in either commercial or noncommercial venues.

Animation Program students have a dedicated lab that includes storyboard, pencil test, and MacPro digital animation stations, as well as access to all Media Arts Program facilities and equipment, including film and digital cameras for still and motion photography alike , digital and analog audio recorders, lighting equipment, and pre- and postproduction facilities equipped with industry-standard software packages.