California College of the Arts

California College of the Arts (CCA) was founded in 1907 and offers twenty undergraduate majors in the areas of art, architecture, design, and writing. It is located in the San Francisco Bay Area, home to world-class museums, galleries, theaters, film festivals, and performance spaces. CCA has two campuses, one in San Francisco and one in Oakland.

At CCA, students make art that makes a difference. They develop their individual voices and styles as part of a dynamic conversation that engages global currents of thought and practice. Their work is informed by a multidisciplinary context in which crossing boundaries is encouraged and celebrated. The First Year Program is based on the Oakland campus and emphasizes skill building, experimentation, and critical thinking in a year of cross-disciplinary study. Through a combination of core studios and academic courses, the program orients students to the rigor of building a creative practice while introducing them to foundational skills that apply to all programs. Students officially choose a major in their second year. The average class size is 14.

The faculty members—a diverse group of artists, architects, designers, and writers—support students in their explorations while challenging them to take risks, clarify and deepen their processes of inquiry, and refine their techniques. Visiting artists and scholars bring fresh perspectives through stimulating lectures and studio visits.

CCA undergraduates regularly win major recognition: Architecture student Jessica Kmetovic was a finalist in the World Trade Center competition while she was completing her degree. In 2008, four students won student filmmaking awards at the Cannes Film Festival and several architecture students were selected to compete in the Solar Decathlon in Washington, D.C. CCA’s graphic design students win awards almost every year from Graphic Design USA, How, Type Directors Club, Adobe, and Graphis. BusinessWeek named CCA one of the world’s best design schools in a 2007 issue. CCA students have participated in Yahoo!’s Annual University Design Expo, shown their films at the Venice Biennale, won the VH1 and IFILM Show Us Your Junk competition, and presented their product designs at the Milan Furniture Fair, the International Contemporary Furniture Fair, and the International Home and Housewares Show.

Program Facilities

CCA’s beautiful, historic, 4-acre Oakland campus is home to the spacious Treadwell Ceramic Arts Center, the Barclay Simpson Sculpture Studio (which has one of the largest working college foundries), the Blattner Print Studio (with facilities for silkscreening, papermaking, and photographic printing), and dedicated studios for animation, glass, jewelry, metal arts, textiles, and interactive media. There are also several galleries with regularly rotating exhibitions of student, faculty, and alumni work.

CCA’s San Francisco campus is home to the programs in architecture, the design disciplines, illustration, media arts (film/video), and painting/drawing as well as all of the graduate programs. It includes the Boyce Fashion Design Studio (with facilities for cutting, draping, knitting, and sewing), the Wornick Wood and Furniture Studios (with a bench room, a machine room, and a spray booth), and a new facility for digital film and media (with a 2,000-square foot production/shooting stage, three film/video editing suites, an audio recording/editing suite, and a media lab). The campus also houses spacious studios for painting, drawing, and architecture. There is a newly expanded graduate center and a new graduate writing building. The CCA Wattis Institute, located on campus, presents international exhibitions of contemporary art, and another gallery regularly features work by CCA graduate students.

Both campuses have a wireless network and several computer labs with the latest hardware and software, open to students 16 to 24 hours daily.

Faculty, Resident Artists, and Alumni

Works by CCA faculty members and alumni are in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Smithsonian, and many other major art institutions. Noted alumni include the painters Raymond Saunders and Squeak Carnwath, the ceramicists Robert Arneson and Peter Voulkos, the conceptual artists David Ireland and Dennis Oppenheim, the filmmaker Wayne Wang, and the designers Lucille Tenazas and Michael Vanderbyl. The Wattis Institute’s Capp Street Project residency program brings acclaimed artists to campus each year. The Graduate Studies Lecture Series features some of the world’s most influential and innovative artists, architects, writers, scholars, designers, and curators.

Student Exhibitions

Undergraduate and graduate exhibitions rotate regularly in dedicated galleries on both campuses. The Baccalaureate Exhibition and the Graduate Exhibition are major events each spring, featuring work by students in all disciplines. There is also a juried fashion design show each spring, and several programs host junior review exhibitions that are open to the public.

Special Programs

CCA students may earn credit for study off campus, either through cross-registration at Mills College or Holy Names College in Oakland, or at another art school through the Association of Independent Colleges of Art and Design mobility program. Through the international exchange program, students may study at schools of art and design in Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, Israel, Japan, the Netherlands, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. Financial aid is available for study abroad. CCA also hosts its own summer study-abroad courses in Europe and Central and South America.

A precredential teaching concentration, open to students in all majors, satisfies prerequisites for application to postgraduate art teacher credentialing programs. Through CCA’s Center for Art and Public Life, students serve as teaching assistants in public schools, mentor young artists, and create their own community art projects. Students may also undertake internships (required for some programs, and encouraged for all), gaining practical experience and professional connections while earning academic credit. The college facilitates internships at design and architecture firms, galleries, museums, nonprofit organizations, publishing houses, and fine-art studios.

Application Procedures

Deadline--freshmen and transfers: continuous. Required: essay, high school transcript, college transcript(s) for transfer students, minimum 2.0 high school GPA, 2 letters of recommendation, portfolio, minimum TOEFL score of 550 (paper-based) or 213 (computer-based), or 79 (internet-based) for international applicants. Recommended: interview, SAT or ACT test scores. Auditions held 1 time. Portfolio reviews held continuously on campus and off campus in National Portfolio Days; the submission of slides may be substituted for portfolios (digital portfolio preferred).