Real-World Experience
Through courses, extracurricular projects, or internships, you'll connect to real-world experiences every school year.
Internships
Internships fuel the career path of many of our graduates. Over 80% of CIA students complete one or more internships before they graduate! You will gain valuable work experience while gaining an edge in the job market and developing valuable connections. Check out some of the recent places our students have interned.
Creativity Works
You'll work on real projects involving public engagement with external partners. You set the goals and craft the project according to your career interests, skill sets, and long-term professional goals. This program is a great way to learn practical aspects of being a professional practicing artist and designer; how to create budgets, interact with external partners, improve time management and much more.
m.power project
This experiential learning class in industrial design empowers to design a product in the fall and launch a crowdfunding campaign in the spring. Throughout this two semester senior project, you will learn about marketing, building a potential customer base, budgeting and costs and filing for a provisional patent. You will gain experience at all parts throughout the product design process.
Professional Practices
This course is a great way to learn about some of the less fun but important things you'll need as a professional artist and designer. You'll learn things like networking, taxes, intellectual property, contracts, employment rights, self-promotion and more. You'll also get to meet a large rotation of guest speakers, lecturers and industry professionals.