Sessions College for Professional Design is a

private Private or privates may refer to: Music * " In Private", by Dusty Springfield from the 1990 album ''Reputation'' * Private (band), a Denmark-based band * "Private" (Ryōko Hirosue song), from the 1999 album ''Private'', written and also recorde ...

for-profit online college in

Tempe, Arizona , settlement_type = City , named_for = Vale of Tempe , image_skyline = Tempeskyline3.jpg , imagesize = 260px , image_caption = Tempe skyline as se ...

. It offers

associate degrees An associate degree is an undergraduate degree awarded after a course of post-secondary study lasting two to three years. It is a level of qualification above a high school diploma, GED, or matriculation, and below a bachelor's degree. The f ...

, undergraduate certificates, and vocational certificates. It is accredited by the

Distance Education Accrediting Commission The Distance Education Accrediting Commission (DEAC), formerly the National Home Study Council and then as the Distance Education and Training Council, is a non-profit national educational accreditation agency in the United States specializing in t ...

(DEAC) and accredited at the certificate program level by

Middle States Commission on Secondary Schools The Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools (Middle States Association or MSA) was a voluntary, peer-based, non-profit association that performed peer evaluation and regional accreditation of public and private schools in the Mid-Atla ...

History

Sessions was originally founded as a

start-up company A startup or start-up is a company or project undertaken by an entrepreneur to seek, develop, and validate a scalable business model. While entrepreneurship refers to all new businesses, including self-employment and businesses that never intend t ...

in 1997, where it operated out of

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

before relocating in 2009 to Tempe, Arizona, when it expanded from a certificate-only institution to an accredited, associate degree-granting college. Sessions College now enrolls approximately 773 students in

associate degree An associate degree is an undergraduate degree awarded after a course of post-secondary study lasting two to three years. It is a level of qualification above a high school diploma, GED, or matriculation, and below a bachelor's degree. The fi ...

and certificate programs in subjects including

graphic design Graphic design is a profession, academic discipline and applied art whose activity consists in projecting visual communications intended to transmit specific messages to social groups, with specific objectives. Graphic design is an interdiscipli ...

web design Web design encompasses many different skills and disciplines in the production and maintenance of websites. The different areas of web design include web graphic design; user interface design (UI design); authoring, including standardised code an ...

digital media Digital media is any communication media that operate in conjunction with various encoded machine-readable data formats. Digital media can be created, viewed, distributed, modified, listened to, and preserved on a digital electronics device. ' ...

illustration An illustration is a decoration, interpretation or visual explanation of a text, concept or process, designed for integration in print and digital published media, such as posters, flyers, magazines, books, teaching materials, animations, vid ...

, advertising design,

digital photography Digital photography uses cameras containing arrays of electronic photodetectors interfaced to an analog-to-digital converter (ADC) to produce images focused by a lens, as opposed to an exposure on photographic film. The digitized image is sto ...

, and

fine art In European academic traditions, fine art is developed primarily for aesthetics or creative expression, distinguishing it from decorative art or applied art, which also has to serve some practical function, such as pottery or most metalwork ...

s. In 2017, Sessions was included on Graphic Design USA’s list of Top Graphic Design Schools.

Academics

The College is run by President Gordon Drummond and CEO Doris Granatowski. Outside of Sessions College, Drummond serves on the board of the Distance Education Accreditation Commission. Until 2015, he was also a board member of the Middle States Association Commission on Secondary Schools. Sessions College’s 2019 student-to-faculty ratio is 8:1. The faculty is composed of working professionals in the art and design industries. Faculty use an asynchronous, project-based learning model to deliver regular, online instruction, critiques, discussions, and weekly assignments. For a number of courses, students can choose between a structured, scheduled course and a self-paced option. Throughout their courses, students receive consistent individualized feedback on their work from professors, as well as feedback from peers. Sessions College has a partnership with

Excelsior College Excelsior University is a private online university in Albany, New York. It offers undergraduate and graduate degrees and comprises three schools: the School of Undergraduate Studies, the School of Graduate Studies, and the School of Nursing. I ...

, allowing students to apply their Sessions credits to Excelsior to pursue a bachelor’s degree in Business and Management or Technology Management in under two years.

Accreditation and memberships

For its degree programs, Sessions College is accredited by the

. At the certificate level, it is accredited by the

. It is also licensed by Arizona State Board for Private Postsecondary Education.

Admission

Sessions College’s undergraduate and vocational certificates operate on an open admissions policy; any student with a

high school diploma A high school diploma or high school degree is a North American academic school leaving qualification awarded upon high school graduation. The high school diploma is typically obtained after a course of study lasting four years, from grade 9 to gra ...

or a

GED The General Educational Development (GED) tests are a group of four subject tests which, when passed, provide certification that the test taker has United States or Canadian high school-level academic skills. It is an alternative to the US high ...

may enroll. To apply for an Associates Degree, students must submit transcripts, work samples, a written essay, and

TOEFL Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL ) is a standardized test to measure the English language ability of non-native speakers wishing to enroll in English-speaking universities. The test is accepted by more than 11,000 universities a ...

scores for students for whom English is a second language. Students may begin their studies at the start of any of the school's three semesters.

References

External links

Official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sessions College For Professional Design Educational institutions established in 1997 Private universities and colleges in Arizona Distance education institutions based in the United States Distance Education Accreditation Commission Graphic design schools 1997 establishments in Arizona