Placement Support At Cornish College of the Arts

Cornish College of the Arts supports placement through Career Engagement, Handshake, department-specific internship resources and faculty industry ties embedded in each arts division.

Career And Placement Pathways

Pathway	What students can use it for
One-to-one career coaching	Interview prep, offer negotiation for freelance contracts and career mapping
Handshake	Full-time roles, internships and on-campus jobs
Department chairs	Custom internship agreements for credit when Handshake does not list a partner
Senior showcases	Recruiter and agent exposure in theatre, music and design
Alumni network	Regional and national creative professionals
Cornish Career Network web resources	Toolkits for art, theatre, film, music and dance job searches
Seattle employer events	On- and off-campus recruiting tied to creative industries

What Cornish Emphasises

Cornish acknowledges that many graduates will freelance, teach artist residencies or build studios. Placement therefore includes business-of-art literacy: pricing work, intellectual property basics, union pathways where relevant and grant research.

International students should coordinate any off-campus paid training with CPT or other authorised categories before signing contracts.

Typical Graduate Directions

Cornish graduates often pursue:

• Performance, choreography and directing
• Studio art, illustration and game art pipelines
• Film editing, sound design and cinematography freelance teams
• Music composition, audio engineering and teaching artistry
• Arts administration and nonprofit programming
• Graduate MFA study after strengthening the portfolio at Cornish

Placement Advice For September 2026 Applicants

Students joining for the September 2026 intake should:

• Treat every department production as a line-item résumé credit
• Build a public portfolio site before Thanksgiving of year one
• Schedule quarterly Career Engagement check-ins
• Collect reference letters from faculty right after successful projects
• Learn basic 1099 tax literacy for US freelance income

Cornish is strongest for students who want artist-led career support, not a corporate recruiting conveyor belt.