USC Roski School of Art and Design

About USC Roski

USC began offering art classes in 1883 and later founded the university's art school in 1895. As one of the oldest art schools in Southern California, the USC Gayle Garner Roski School of Art and Design boasts a noteworthy history, illustrious alumni, internationally renowned faculty and bright, talented students. The school is a unique, supportive environment for creativity, experimentation and collaboration in the visual arts and design.

USC Roski features an open approach to art that allows for both the integration and overlap of a number of artistic fields, as well as opportunities for cross-discipline research and collaboration at 18 professional schools at USC, one of the world’s leading research institutions. This gives students the extraordinary ability to seek a wide range of paths and to customize their degree in a way that’s as individual as they are.

Located in the heart of Los Angeles, home to a vital local art and design community and an international gallery and museum scene, at USC Roski, creativity is unleashed and students thrive. The school offers courses in all media—painting, drawing, photography, design, sculpture, video, digital media, ceramics, performance, printmaking—and students are encouraged throughout their education to explore, combine, mix, match and move freely among them.

All USC Roski students major simply in art or design, rather than in a specific medium—such as photography or painting—rejecting the limiting requirement to choose a concentration in a single area. Rather, students are able to focus on what’s relevant to their needs and interests. For aspiring illustrators, that might mean classes in drawing, video, and digital media; for future sculptors, a total immersion in sculpture.

Most importantly, beyond technical proficiency in methods and materials, at the Roski School students learn what it means to be an artist or designer. They learn to share ideas with fellow artists—and with musicians, actors, architects, journalists, biologists and screenwriters who will be among their classmates. They’ll learn to see images and the world critically, raise difficult and provocative questions and respond to—and create—art and culture in new and meaningful ways.

USC Roski Mission Statement

USC Gayle Garner Roski School of Art and Design is committed to inspiring students to create aesthetically powerful, politically responsible, and inclusive ways of being in the world.

The school’s mission is to contribute to the vibrant research and creative environments of USC, the greater Los Angeles art and design communities and the world at large. We believe that art and design are viable and important means of expression that critically examines the complex, globally networked world in which we live.

We specifically nurture creativity in the arts via an immersive studio curriculum built upon a foundation of historical and critical discourse to develop the rigorous critical thinking skills necessary for artists and designers in the 21st century. We believe that the creative professions have a special charge to illuminate, question, and reshape how we understand ourselves, each other, and the world.

All of our teachings are contextualized within issues of diversity, equity, and sustainability. And in our quest to support, guide, and develop great creative minds, faculty and students explore together new innovative hybrid forms of art, design, and critical studies practices, forging new ways of imagining the future.