Cornish

Cornish College is a great place to take music lessons, guitar lessons, and piano lessons. I plan to go back and take their Recording Logic course as well as their Protools course. I had a wonderful time.

The school is expensive, but you will be in very small class sizes with direct contact from some very skilled core faculty, at least in the design department. If you are studying design, the key factors that differentiate Cornish from other schools are: Class size, the ability to tell a narrative/​story and do strong research, the networking with professional instructors, and lastly having the name behind you (this may sound funny, but the brand does actually open doors). That being said, it is very costly, you might not be exposed to as many different personalities and cultures as a large school, and technical skills from other universities seem to be higher. The design education at Cornish is fundamentally strong.

Not worth the huge investment of over $ 30,000/year. You will have your dreams crushed. Did you know you will get a review alone with your teachers after every semester and have to be «invited» back each semester? Don’t assume just because you pay them and you audition and get in, or that your grades are good that you get to attend, you have to be asked back to attend. it’s really not worth the stress. Find a place where they help you grow and achieve your dream of acting/​music/​dance, not where you are criticized and must prove yourself over and over.

I was so excited to attend Cornish College of the Arts in their performance production department. I couldn’t wait to move to such an «artsy» city to be surrounded by other artists ²⁴⁄₇. I headed to Cornish in September for the ²⁰¹¹⁄₂₀₁₂ school year as a freshman. Right from the beginning of the year I made many friends and started learning in many of my classes. The design of performance production department is very similar to other schools with similar programs like UCSD, DePaul and Carnegie Mellon. They say that their students will have a well rounded view of what is involved with technical theatre (I wouldn’t just learn stage Management. I would take lighting classes, set design classes, etc…) Which can be very beneficial!
I thought this school would be great and would put on awesome productions and provide multiple opportunities to work on shows. I realized this wouldn’t be the case when they told me that the students in the tech department do not get to be on the run crew for the shows, instead they allow the theatre freshman to do it to get experience. I think it is a great opportunity for the actors to see what the tech students do, but at the same time I should be involved directly with the run of the show because I am there to LEARN how to work on productions.
For the first half of the year, one of my classes was to work in the scene shop. This was a great experience and I enjoyed it very much and learned plenty from the knowledgeable faculty in the shop
They had a production in the Fall of 2011 in their «main venue» (an old bar that Cornish bought and renovated… It’s dirty and old and nothing is up-​to-​date except for their lighting console and a few of the fixtures… As of May 2011) I went to go see it with one of my friends in the department. Not only was the acting choppy and dull but the sound was pitchy, the stage floor was all dirty and looked as if people had spilled paint in some areas and didn’t take the time to fix it properly with detail.
By this point, half way through my first semester… I was still deciding whether or not I would stay for the next semester.
The best part of my time in Seattle would have to be my work study job. I was able to work for the city of Seattle in their arts admin offices, it was the one thing I looked forward to each week! I was able to make many professional connections with the staff here more than at school.
At the end of the fall semester, close to ¼ of the performance production freshman students left the program. Their reasons ranged person to person. Many of them left the program however because they knew it was not worth the 40,000 per year. 1 student went to go work for a theatre company in Seattle while another went to go work throughout LA, New York, and Idaho on productions. (She is now hired by the UCLA school of theatre)
I decided to come back to the school for the spring semster. The one main change in my class schedule was how I worked in the costume shop rather then the scene shop. Long story short, the costume shop students would sometimes work on costumes for upwards of 22 hours a week and yet only get credit for 4 or 6 of those hours. I brought this up to the registrars office and the provost, I am still not aware if anything has changed. In the costume shop, the teacher would be smart with his students and say things about particular students when they were not around. In one incident, the teacher referred to a student who had accidentally messed up a costume as a «Fat Cow». These 22 hour weeks were NOT optional. There was a 3 week period when I did not have a single day off because these costume shop work days went on Saturdays and Sundays.
Like I said, I was there to study Stage Management. Little opportunities showed themselves within the school to stage manage. Few of the positions were filled by the stage management students and the school even PAID outside stage managers or students that had graduated to come do the work. If you go to a school to learn something, especially within theatre or entertainment the only way to learn is to do. Every single stage manager will tell you that. The only way to learn is to DO.
Other than that, I would say that I am much happier here at CalArts. Many more opportunities, cheaper tuition due to more scholarship opportunities, large amounts of cross pollination to work in a variety of shows like dance and film rather where Cornish strictly limited what you could do, Job connections outside of school while Cornish would not permit outside production work during the school year, and many work study opportunities on campus, where as Cornish would force you to do some things as part of a class EX: dirty laundry for productions.
That is my review of Cornish College of the Arts. Please take in mind that this is only my personal view and experience. I highly suggest you talk with current students, admission staff and program faculty to receive other view points.

I am a 2 nd year student in the music program at cornish and I love it. This school is small enough that I am on a first name basis with all of my teachers. I know most people in my department by instrument and name. The tuition is really high, but I like that I am not being standardized like the UW students. They are all taught the same things and aren’t encouraged to rebel and develope a sense of self. I love my education.

I LOVE my education at cornish. I have been learning so much about music and how to make it beautiful. This place is ripe for the picking for new opportunities and ideas. I highly recommend for anyone interested in music, and I hear the other programs are pretty good too. :)

I went to an amazing play at Cornish college of the arts last Friday. It is called «The Desert». Written and directed by the Simple Theater Company led by Steven Ackley a Cornish college junior. I was so impressed with the set design and the creative approach to the images flashed in the background. The play is tough to analyze easily. It left me intrigued and wanting to ask so many questions. The cast had a lot of energy. My favorite part was the ending. I do not want to give it away but it reminds me so of David Lynch films. Dark ideas mixed with true life experiences that seem like dreams. This is really really amazing and I hope to see more work from these young and talented artists. Bravo!

A friend of mine and I went to Cornish for a production of play called «The Desert» last Friday, and it was great. I don’t want to give it away, but, it had an eeriness that would translate really well to film. It reminded me a little bit of «Grand Canyon,» and it reminded my friend of some David Lynch films. The characterizations were believable, and you could tell that the actors and set crew really put their hearts into this short, intense work. It will keep you talking and thinking well after the show is over. Check it out!

The further into the program I get, the more I realize how political the whole school is. The amount of bureaucracy is a little crazy given the small size of the school. It’s still a decent school, and it’s interesting how the majors each seem to create their own dysfunctional families.