ADVERTORIAL
A new course from the Savannah College of Art and Design puts teenagers to work on live briefs for real clients, and awards university credit before they have applied.Already running at Leysin American School in Switzerland, it is set to reach more schools worldwide. Designing the Future: A Leading Design University Takes Real-World Learning into High School
WRITTEN BY MARSHALL SAPHERSON
makes PRO 340 different is not the credit but how students learn: through hands on work on real tasks for live clients, rather than conventional teaching and assessment alone. WHY SCAD? For parents outside the US who don’t follow American college rankings, SCAD’s standing is worth knowing. Red Dot ranks it No. 1 in the Americas and Europe, Art & Object names it the best art school in the US, and U.S. News & World Report places it No. 2 among the country’s most innovative universities. Perhaps more telling than any ranking: 99% of SCAD’s graduates are employed, in further study, or both, within a year of graduation.
professionals: responding to a real brief, working in a team, and pitching solutions to a room of adults. Their course, PRO 340, built by the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD), teaches transferable skills, from researching a problem to refining concepts and presenting solutions. It runs alongside students’ main study programme. Earning university credit at school is not new. Many international schools already offer credit or advanced standing through Advanced Placement (AP) or International Baccalaureate (IB) coursework. What
Parents at international schools hear it constantly: schools teach one thing while employers want another, and AI is moving the target faster than any curriculum can adapt. Few of us can say with confidence which jobs will exist by the time our children leave university. A new course from one of America’s leading design universities offers one answer. This autumn, a group of sixteen and seventeen year olds at Leysin American School (LAS) in Switzerland began working through the same design process used by
“We’re teaching them how to go out into the world, regardless of the business they’re in, and find ways to be successful.”
INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL PARENT SUMMER 2026 | 46
Powered by FlippingBook