#csssa 2016

Well, I never finished this blog. ^^;

But for any curious artists applying this year, feel free to ask me any questions you may have about CSSSA!

hello!!

ooh anon! it sounds like you think i go to calarts, haha! which i don’t, i’m still in high school. that program i did, csssa, it just took place at the calarts campus but it has no affiliation with it! csssa is run by the government of california, and they just use the calarts dorms and facilities to run csssa.

and so that means that the csssa teachers aren’t calarts professors! well, some of them aren’t. like some of them teach there, but not all of them do. actually, a lot of the csssa faculty went to calarts as students though! so that’s pretty cool. (and my design teacher is actually an admissions representative for calarts!)

day to day life is cool, there’s lots of nice places to hang out at on the campus and the calarts campus is SO confusing, there’s always new places to explore. there’s tennis courts, basketball courts, and a swimming pool. and lots of open grassy fields outside. and there’s a little lounge called mom’s cafe, where you can play pool and foosball and board games and a piano. and there’s a coffeeshop on campus called tatum’s cafe where people go to hang or read or use their laptops or buy drinks and food. and every night there’s always showcases from different departments going on, i went to theater showcases, creative writing readings, dance shows, music performances, and animation and film/video screenings. there’s always something to do!

and on the weekends there’s field trips to places like disneyland and the getty museum. but if you don’t go and you stay on campus, there’s movie screenings and the pool is always open.

i really, really enjoyed my free time there because i had so much independence. i could play foosball in mom’s cafe, chill in tatum’s cafe, catch a movie screening, go to a showcase, work on my art projects in the studios, go to the pool, sneak into an empty theater and hang out with friends or play piano by myself, whatever! i miss the freedom so much.

hello!

btw, i saw your other message about how you’re applying as a painting major. that’s cool, i was a painting and digital media major! so definitely don’t be afraid to ask me about that if you have any questions.

so yeah for your portfolio, definitely have your painting piece be strong, since you’re applying as a painting major. (since all 3 of your pieces have to be in different mediums and 1 of them has to be in the medium of your first choice). so definitely show them that you can paint! i applied with my first choice as painting, and i KNOW my painting wasn’t strong, and i think that’s where my application suffered. (i’ll post my application later and explain)

hey hanna!!

the food was….not….that great..,,,.. LMAO ok well like some days were better than others. the breakfasts usually weren’t that awesome so i mostly ate cereal and fruit and like eggs and bacon and stuff (avoid the french toast). the meals usually got better around lunch and dinner (beware their asian food tho it’s pretty yikes). but the pizza they had at lunch was really good! so yeah like idk overall it wasn’t that great but i always managed to find something to eat every day. i definitely don’t miss it, but while you’re there you get kinda used to it. i don’t know if they offer gluten free stuff? i know they have vegetarian options every day but if you’re looking for gluten free you can always just have the fruit and veggies and protein they offer! but you can also order takeout! lots of people order out and have it delivered and people ordered domino’s like, every night. i swear i saw the domino’s delivery dude like every night.

yeah you definitely get used to being away from home. i really liked the independence i had there and it was nice kind of being away from my parents and running my personal schedule on my own terms. it’s different for everyone tho! i know some people went home for the weekend EVERY weekend, and some people went out with their families on the weekend, and some people never talked to their family at ALL the entire month. for me, i texted my mom most nights and talked to her a few times a week. so it really depends on you! but i know you have lots of fun there if you get out of your room and hang out with people during your free time because csssa gives you so much FREEDOM. you’re practically unsupervised and completely on your own on the campus during your free time, so you’re really independent. (it sounds scary but it’s really not, don’t worry haha)

ok so i’ve decided to talk a little bit about my time at csssa and also kind of just collect my thoughts about it for myself.

i won’t go into toooo much detail but if you’d like to hear the specifics about anything, don’t hesitate to ask!