I am a junior in high school and am interested in going to art school to study illustration with an emphasis on Entertainment Arts (concept art for films and animation) in the Fall of 2018. For 2 summers I’ve taken the pre-college program at CCA in Oakland, and had a great experience. My skills grew a lot, and I gained a lot of industry insight from the teachers. This summer I’d like to try something different and am considering pre-college programs at Art Center College of Design (Entertainment Design), Otis (Figure Drawing + Digital Art), and Laguna College of Art and Design (Animation Portfolio Development + Figure Drawing). If you attended one of these summer programs, can you provide feedback to help me decide?
I’m sorry I can’t give you any advice but I wanted to do an arts pre-college program, is the one at CCA good?
Yes, I really enjoyed my time at CCA. Both summer classes were taught by industry professionals. The first year I took a combined drawing and graphic design courses. The second year I took animation taught by two men who worked for years at Disney. (They are currently working fulltime as professors at CCA). I think it is important that whichever courses you take, that they be taught by working professionals. I have always been creative and knew I wanted to pursue a creative field. Taking these classes helped me narrow down my interests, not only because the work I did, but because of the insight I got from the teachers. It was invaluable. Since I’m local to CCA, I’ve continued to take weekend classes (figure drawing, visual development) to build my skills so that I can build a portfolio for art school. These weekend classes have also been fantastic – again, taught by working professionals. I’ve noticed many of the art schools offer night and weekend classes for the general public, and some, like CCA, offer classes designed specifically for high-schoolers looking to build their skills throughout the school year. If you live near an art school, I highly recommend those extra classes.
DD took figure drawing from Hope Railey at Laguna College of Art and Design. It is amazing - would highly recommend. The summer she took it (two summers ago) Hope taught Foundations in the morning and Figure Drawing in the afternoon. There was a student in the class that had taken it as a rising junior in high school, and was returning to take it again as a rising senior in college. She told my daughter that she had learned more about technique, perspective, shape, color, etc from Hope than in her entire University program. Note: the last I heard, there was no housing available for the program. Laguna is very pricey - many students commute from areas close to Laguna but not on the beach. I know nothing about the animation summer course.
Thanks so much for your posts. I’m trying to find a program for my daughter, and will look into these summer programs. We are on the West Coast (not California), so she would need housing, or we need to find extended stay hotel. What are the CCA dorms like? Also, do you know anything about the program at UCLA? She is interested in drawing and painting. Thanks again for posting your opinions about these programs. You’ve been very helpful.
CCA has two campuses, an older one in Oakland (with newer dorms) and a newer San Francisco campus. I believe the pre-college programs are in Oakland (be sure to check). The dorms are very nice and right next to the school. Check online to see if they have pictures or videos of the dorms. They offer a variety of night and weekend activities for the kids so that they bond with one another. Last year they even offered free, optional figure-drawing classes to those in the pre-college program. And like most art programs, they hold an exhibition of student work on the last day (and even offered scholarships to some excellent students if they chose to eventually apply there). Those exhibitions show all the students’ work, from all the programs. It’s amazing how much talent is out there! They also had admissions directors hold an optional evening seminar to explain what it takes to get admitted to the school.
As a side note, within walking distance to the Oakland campus is a grocery store. And within a 10-15 min walk is a cute street with lots of shops and restaurants. A lot of the students went there for fun and chill time. The local train, BART, is nearby too. And of course, San Francisco is just a few miles away and can’t be beat!
Unfortunately, I don’t know anything about the program at UCLA.
I am currently enrolled for the OTIS pre-college summer program 2017. I want to experience living away from home for a month. If you troll College Confidential, you’ll find feedback on their program. They have brand new dorms and a very nice campus really close to LAX airport. Check out their website at otis.edu. They started Summer of Art enrollment about a month ago.
LCAD and Art Center also have fabulous pre-college programs, but don’t offer dorms. For those out of the area, it makes things a little more complicated, but not impossible. Since Otis has dorms and a good program, I chose them this year.