First-Year Experience and Core Curriculum

As a first-year student, you will experience an immersive program that promotes your success in college.

Your yearlong Foundation Studio section will establish an immediate sense of community with your faculty and fellow classmates. The first-year Common Core Curriculum includes studio courses that teach the universal vocabulary, skills and concepts of all art and design disciplines. Working with your hands, on the computer, drawing from observation and building form prepares you for any major and because we teach across disciplines, Foundation helps equip you for the future, wherever your careers take you.

The Core Curriculum in your Liberal Arts and Sciences courses places a strong emphasis on common intellectual experiences, art history, critical inquiry, diversity, writing, information literacy and collaborative learning. You will always be in close dialogue with faculty members who will help you to discover working methods that will carry you into a major, serve you through college, and last a lifetime.

All Foundation students select an Affinity Section with 18 students who share all of their studio courses for the entire year. The students above are finishing their Foundation year with the body project in the Form and Space course. They have shared challenges, deadlines, and learning experiences together.

Drawing Techniques

Life Drawing instructor Beverly Bledsoe demonstrating drawing techniques to Foundation students. Small classes mean ample opportunity for faculty/student interaction.

Building Form

Building Form students work in teams to build room-size cantilevers, learning basic principles of physics. Students collaborate on fast and dirty solutions to join disparate materials together, distributing and projecting weight from the fulcrum.

Ballona Wetlands

Second semester Foundation students on a field trip to the Ballona Wetlands for their Connections Through Color and Design course, a first year Creative Action Course. Students use their color and design skills to solve problems in the larger community that require transdisciplinary practice, research, and collaboration.

Creative Practices and Responses

Creative Practices and Responses, a second-semester class, gives you the opportunity to research and develop your own interests and work in any medium you desire. Past projects range from book-making to performance and video.