January 13 , 1999 - 50 students inaugurate classes at Expression College for Digital Arts

PIONEERS LAUNCH UNIQUE NEW HIGH-TECH TRAINING PROGRAM

EMERYVILLE, Calif. - Excitement cascaded through Expression College for Digital Arts Monday as members of the school’s inaugural class of 50 students began a 14-month course of study intended to lead them to new careers in digital visual media or sound arts. They are pioneers in a new high-tech training program unlike any other in America.

Expression will teach some skills offered nowhere else, on the most future-oriented equipment available, and with an intense intimacy between Course Directors and students that can’t be found in any similar program in the industry.

Students in the first class range in age from 19 to 35, with an average in the mid-20s. There are six women among the group of 50. While many will commute from their homes in the San Francisco Bay Area, others have moved to Emeryville from elsewhere in California. About 15 percent come from outside California and one has come from his home in Germany to achieve the Expression experience.

Even construction workers seemed to catch the fever of excitement as they applied finishing coats of paint to the walls as new students hurried past. The classrooms and other areas where the students will spend their first two months of the curriculum were finished literally hours before the students arrived. Staff and contractors worked feverishly in recent days assembling custom-designed furniture and connecting computer blockinals. Some were still working in one room Monday morning while students gathered in the next.

Expression President Gary Platt promised his new “family” of students that by the time they are ready to move into laboratories around March 10, to begin more advanced phases of their curriculum, the multiple recording studios and computer laboratories that today are still bare concrete and steel will be ready for them.

Award-winning architect John Storyk, who worked with Platt to design the ground-breaking facilities for Expression, buzzed about the building checking on details of the ongoing construction, between meeting the students. Storyk himself will teach a course later in the curriculum on “Architecture and Acoustics of Media Production Facilities.”

“This is just incredible,” bubbled Platt as he addressed the students for the first time. “You all are just great, and you are very special. No one will have the same experience here that you do, because you’re the first. You’re going to work hard, you’re going to learn a lot - and you’re going to have a blast!”

Students met the faculty who will work with them on a six-to-one ratio in the labs and studios. Classroom lectures will accommodate up to 30 students. In their first two courses - “Living in a Digital Media World” and “Media - Sound and Visual” - all students will study the basics of computer hardware and software use and sound and video recording and post-production techniques. Then they will separate into one of two concentrations, either in sound or visual media, where they will stay for the balance of their 14-month curriculum.

Students were warned that they are in for an intense experience of study and hands-on training – a “total immersion boot camp” – with an average of nine hours of classes and labs scheduled each day, five days a week, for a total of at least 2,168 hours of study.

Classes may be scheduled anytime between 8 a.m. and midnight, because the working world they are training for doesn’t operate on a 9-to-5 schedule. And they were told that they must maintain at least a C grade and attend at least 90 percent of their classes to stay in good standing.

But they were also encouraged that their studies will be mixed with frequent doses of fun – an integral part of the Expression curriculum – as they learned first hand when they were sent out with disposable cameras on a scavenger hunt to find their way around the school and the surrounding community.

After they returned from their hunt, the Expressionists were treated to a wailing good time at a private party at a nearby jazz and blues club for the rest of the night. Most of the students – clearly a multi-talented bunch – took turns jamming on stage with the musicians, accompanied by, among others, President Platt on his jazz trombone.

Emeryville is across the Bay Bridge from San Francisco. The school is located in a building that was formerly part of the campus of Sybase, Inc., a software company that is headquartered next door.

Another class is scheduled to begin on March 10, and already is about half-full. Students must be high school graduates and must pass a basic skills test and participate in an application interview.

Tuition is $25,700 in the Comprehensive Sound Arts Program and $27,700 in the Comprehensive Digital Visual Media Program.

About Expression College for Digital Arts
Founded in 1999, Expression is a unique, fully licensed digital arts college. Expression College for Digital Arts teaches and grants Bachelor degrees in three programs: Sound Arts; Digital Visual Media (comprising 3DAnimation and Visual Effects); and Digital Graphic Design (emphasizing Broadcast Design and Motion Graphics.) Expression utilizes a professional accelerated program and students live and learn in the culture of digital arts for approximately 2.5 years. Each class is limited to a small number of students to insure excellent and hands-on learning and the student to computer ratio is one-to-one. Students are taught by and work with the best practitioners and equipment that the industry can offer. Expression’s close ties to top industry professionals provide students with real-world client projects, mentorship and internship opportunities and a top-rated career development track that has resulted in a 80+% placement rate for graduates. When graduates leave their Expression family behind, they are prepared to assume sought-after jobs in Silicon Valley, Hollywood, and other art and high technology centers around the world. Expression College is accredited by the Accrediting Commission for Career Schools and Colleges of Technology, (ACCSCT).

Expression College for Digital Arts’ campus is located in an imagination-inspiring 85,000-square-foot building, at 6601 Shellmound St. in Emeryville, Calif., just across the Bay Bridge from San Francisco. For more information, please visit Expression’s Website at: www.expression.edu.

Contact:
Karen Wertman, Director of Marketing
Expression College for Digital Arts

Expression College for Digital Arts Website
www.expression.edu