Otis College of Art and Design educates a diverse community of students to become highly skilled, well-informed, and responsible professionals—empowering them to shape the world.
About Otis College
Otis College of Art and Design was founded in 1918, when General Harrison Gray Otis, publisher of the Los Angeles Times, bequeathed his MacArthur Park property to the City of Los Angeles for “the advancement of the arts.” Originally named Otis Art Institute, the College became affiliated with New York’s Parsons School of Design in 1978 and was nicknamed Otis-Parsons. In 1991, it became an independent institution and was soon renamed Otis College of Art and Design. The College remained in its historic Westlake home until 1997, when the main campus was moved to L.A.’s Westside, just north of the Los Angeles International Airport and a few miles from the beach. Satellite locations were established in downtown Los Angeles and the nearby beach community of El Segundo.
Today, Otis College is one of the world’s foremost professional schools of art and design, a recognized leader in academic excellence, learning technologies, community engagement, and professional preparation. The College's reputation attracts students from 40 states and 28 countries, making it one of the most diverse private art colleges in the U.S. The College’s diversity is one of Otis' great strengths; it prepares students to imagine what lies ahead and benefits employers who know the value of creativity. The College offers an interdisciplinary education for over 1,300 full-time students, awarding Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) degrees in Animation, Communication Arts, Digital Media, Fashion Design, Fine Arts, Game and Entertainment Design, Graphic Design, Illustration, Product Design, and Toy Design; and Master of Fine Arts (MFA) degrees in Fine Arts and Graphic Design. Extension offers certificate programs as well as personal and professional development courses.
Otis College has trained generations of artists who have been in the vanguard of cultural and entrepreneurial life. The College’s alumni are well represented at leading museums and prestigious collecting institutions including the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Museum of Modern Art, and The Guggenheim Museum in New York; the Art Institute of Chicago; the Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles; the Centre Pompidou in Paris; and many others. Otis-educated designers shape the visual world, from the products people use to the built environments they live in, and from the clothes people wear to the toys children play with. Otis College alumni are cultural leaders working around the world in companies like Mattel, Sony Pictures, Nike, Gap, Pixar, and Disney. Imagine the Oscar ceremonies without its golden statuette, The Sound of Music without its costumes, The Lord of the Rings without its visual effects, Avatar without its trademark blue alien skin, or the Getty without its famed garden, and you will have a sense of the world without Otis alumni. Since 1918, Otis graduates have made unique, positive, and lasting marks on the world.
Accreditation
Otis College of Art and Design, a private, nonprofit institution of higher learning, is accredited by the Accrediting Commission for Senior Colleges and Universities of the Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC), 985 Atlantic Avenue, Suite 100, Alameda, CA 94501. (510) 748-9001, and the National Association of Schools of Art and Design (NASAD). Otis College is a member of the Association of Independent Colleges of Art and Design (AICAD). Additionally, the Student Health and Wellness Center at Otis College is fully accredited by the Accreditation Association for Ambulatory Health Care (AAAHC), providing the highest level of quality care within a college health center.
Campus
Otis College is located in Los Angeles, a magnet for artists, dreamers, and innovators from around the world. The region’s sunny climate, frontier history, and open landscape encourage new ideas, diversity, and creativity. The five-acre Elaine and Bram Goldsmith Campus on the Westside of Los Angeles houses Otis College’s undergraduate programs and graduate programs, along with the Millard Sheets Library, and state-of-the-art labs and shops. The Goldsmith Campus is anchored by Ahmanson Hall— the converted 1963 futurist IBM Aerospace building, famous for its computer punch card window design—and the neo modernist Galef Center for Fine Arts.
Enrollment Retention and Graduation Rates
The most recent six-year graduation rate, based on first-time, full-time students who entered in Fall 2017 and completed their degree within six years, is 61%. Visit https://www.otis.edu/student-outcomes/retention-graduation-rates for more information about retention and graduation rates.
Helen Bolsky Gallery
The Bolsky Gallery is dedicated to showing student work from the undergraduate and graduate Fine Arts programs in the Fall and Spring semesters.
Millard Sheets Library
The Millard Sheets Library provides support for all academic disciplines at Otis College. The Library contains over 35,000 volumes and 250,000 electronic books focused on fine arts, fashion, architecture, design, photography, film, art history, and critical studies. Subscriptions to more than 100 periodicals are kept current, and back issues of influential magazines and journals are available in bound volumes. The Library also subscribes to several online bibliographic and full-text databases. The Library has more than 45,000 images in a Digital Image Database (OtisDID), 2,400 artists’ books, a materials collection, and 3,000 DVDs.